Too Smart for His Own Good
by Nicole Harpe
Summary: The Project has ended ... maybe. Something isn't right, and Sam and Al still have terrifying work to do.
1. Nightmares Really Do Come True

**Too Smart for His Own Good

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**

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

* * *

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter One - Nightmares Really Do Come True**

Tall, elegant and very beautiful, her piercing eyes projected a disquieting allure. With maliciousness, she stared at the kaleidoscope-dressed man standing on the far side of the room. Completely oblivious of her disdain, he chattered, "Beckett's memories are gone. He's harmless."

Gazing deeply into the shallow eyes of the dizzy man, she fumed, "I know that, you fool."

Without acknowledging she'd said a word, he blithely babbled, "But Calavicci isn't harmless. He remembers everything. What are you going to do about him?"

Annoyed at the mention of Beckett and the insignificant little Admiral she sighed with utter condescension, "It's brilliant and ever so entertaining."

* * *

The experiment was over. It had been a long ten years. Leaping from person to person was now history and the time had come for Dr. Sam Beckett to sit back and finally take a deep breath. He wasn't used to looking like himself. The gray forelock in his brown hair was a new addition. So were the crinkles around his eyes. When he passed a mirror he was startled by his own reflection. It felt odd being Sam and he wasn't sure he was dealing with it well. The only good thing that happened was within days, his pre-leap memory returned. He had all of it back, but sadly, also completely lost the memory of his leaps. To know what happened in a certain situation, he had to access Ziggy, the parallel hybrid computer he designed, or read Admiral Al Calavicci's detailed journals. This lack of remembrance made Sam, on occasion, doubt what they accomplished. At times, it seemed to him the adventures were all stories by a very imaginative and creative Admiral, written as a cover-up for Sam's mental breakdown. The lack of reality disturbed him.

Unlike Sam, the Admiral remembered all the leaps, all the variations in time, all the ramifications of those variations and now that it was all over, it was proving to be overwhelming. With hundreds of lifetimes worth of memories to sort out, he wasn't sleeping or eating well. His self-assurance flew out the window and fear was always present in his dark eyes. Al needed to know where Sam was at every minute as if not knowing meant Sam would disappear again.

Sam had some of the same fears. He needed Al's advice in almost every situation. Before moving on seemingly inconsequential decisions, he waited for Al to guide him. The dream of being home wasn't panning out as they had assumed it would. Both men knew something was very wrong, but neither wanted the other to worry, so each kept it smoldering inside.

It was inevitable that the focus of most people's attention was on the younger man, the time traveler who became lost in his own experiment. Al didn't mind. He felt lucky to finally be left alone, able to disappear behind the monumental job of Project Administrator. Sam had committee meeting after committee meeting, writing the reports and finalizing the presentation paper for the Nobel Committee. It was already hyped in various media that Beckett and Calavicci would be the winners of the Physics Prize for the year 2005. _Time Magazine_ said so with a cover story. So did _Newsweek, Scientific American_ and most of the legitimate academic journals as well. Sam was excited about the possibility of a second Nobel and even more excited about Al getting his first. In all honestly, Al didn't care about the Nobel Prize and even requested his name be left off the paper as co-creator of the project, but Sam knew the truth. Without Al, the project would never have happened and, after Sam's impetuous first leap, could never have been successfully concluded. After all, the Admiral saved Sam's life 41 times in the ten years he leaped about in time.

Ten months had gone by since Sam returned from wherever. It was Saturday. Al was intense at his computer attempting to locate a lost file in the 18,829 billion gigabytes of Ziggy's memory. If Ziggy had done the search, it would have been over in a thousandth of a millisecond, but Al took his loss of the file as a challenge. He found it after fifteen minutes of searching. Then, there was the maintenance report to review and the budget to look at.

Sam poked his head in. He and Donna had completed the first draft of the paper regarding the results of Quantum Leap and it needed Al's total recall of all leaps and his literary expertise to make it readable, understandable, and acceptable. "Beth said you were here already. Could you look at this draft of the Nobel paper? We think it's almost right, but you're the wordsmith."

"Put it on my desk. I'll get to it as soon as I can."

Using the puppy dog face that always worked on his friend, Sam asked, "Before the party?"

The party slipped his mind. Knowing Sam, he didn't bother looking up. That face would get him and he didn't have time for it. The Admiral shook his head and pointed to the six inches of paper piled up already. "All of this needs to be handled today."

Sam was disappointed, but he understood. "No problem, Al, but remember, our flight leaves at noon and you're the pilot." He plunked an additional two inches of paper on top of Al's pile. "Got to go help Donna with the baby. Your godson is a handful." Then he walked out.

A quick look at his watch told him it was 8:15 and he'd already been working for three hours. He hadn't eaten breakfast again, but then nothing felt like it would stay down. He didn't even want to think about the reception tonight. People were gathering to publicly congratulate all on the successful return of Sam Beckett and the completion of Phase II of Project Quantum Leap. It would be a white tie affair at the ever chi-chi Monticello Hotel for 350 of Sam's and Al's closest friends. It was a night for the Navy tailcoat and all the fancy hardware hanging off his pocket and the big one around his neck, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Photo opportunities would be abundant with local and national press scheduled to cover the event.

Al, Beth, Sam, Donna and others would be spending the night at the hotel because the first meetings regarding Quantum Leap's Phase III were beginning at 7:30 the next morning. It was a formal meeting and an important one. Vice President Diane McBride would be representing the feds. There were preparations to be completed. Al had to check with clerical to be sure the packets of information he requested were ready and on their way to the conference center.

It was getting late. He didn't need the aggravation of the ridiculous unlawful dismissal suit. Al threw the one-more-piece-of-annoying-crap on the credenza behind him so he could deal with it when he got back from Albuquerque.

Where was the last estimate on the cost for Ziggy's modifications for Phase III? He needed that for the morning. He should eat, but not yet. Bag lunches were scheduled for the jet flight to Albuquerque, though food held absolutely no appeal for him. He wondered how he was going to fake eating the rubber chicken that night. His stomach was in knots. His clothes, (another annoying detail) - hopefully Beth packed for him and he wouldn't have to worry about that. He had to call the hangar and make sure the jet was ready. When he reached for the phone, he could see his hand shake a little. Even though he was scheduled to fly, he decided to ask for another pilot. Flying was one of his greatest loves, but he wasn't stupid. With his hands shaking, he wouldn't pilot. His machismo wasn't tied into doing dumb stunts like flying when he wasn't shouldn't. Now he had to fabricate some story explaining why he wasn't piloting the jet.

The phone rang and if he had money on it being Beth, he'd have won. It was 11 o'clock and the plane would be taking off in an hour. In a sheepish voice, he asked if she packed his uniform, all the fruit salad for his breast pocket, etc. She had and he told her yet again that he loved her. It was past noon when Al packed up his desk and made his way to the hangar knowing he was in hot water.

His late arrival, while completely expected, was not appreciated by the contingent aboard the Lear. The manifest listed three Calaviccis - Al, Beth, and Allegra, the youngest of their four daughters. The Becketts were there, so that made five. The pilot made six. The jet seated twelve, so there was room to spread out. Al excused himself and made his way to the back. He sat alone and watched the New Mexico sky shining bright and hopeful. While other hearts onboard were light and full of anticipation for the evening, Al was uncharacteristically low-key. Allegra noticed it first and sat next to him. "Hey, there, Dad. What's going on?"

He looked into her dark eyes, a uniquely beautiful color that Sam called "Italian Chocolate." Taking her hand, he said, "You are so beautiful. How did I ever father a kid like you?"

Allie was a bright kid and tuned into her father better than anyone including Sam and sometimes even her mother. "Okay, Dad, what's up? Are you feeling alright?"

He put his arm around his 16-year-old child. "I'm tired, sweetheart. It's been a long ten years and I finally got a chance to catch my breath. I just didn't realize how tired I really was."

The young girl barely recalled the times when her father's life didn't revolve around Imaging Chambers and physics so complex that only a handful of people in the world understood it. "It's weird, a good weird, not having to wonder where Uncle Sam is, but I got to tell you, it's even better knowing where you are. Every time you went into that room, I wondered if you'd come back."

His child's truth tore his heart open. Standard procedure had Ziggy notifying Beth when he was on his way home, regardless of the insanity of the hour. Allie's sixth sense woke her each time that call came in the middle of the night and she would wait for daddy to stop in her room and for them to have a quiet little goodnight hug. Reminiscent of those perfect moments, he pulled her even closer. "This whole thing was hard on you, wasn't it, Allie?"

"I don't know. It's just the way it was. All of us knew what you and Uncle Sam were doing was important, more important than anything we could imagine. I guess we knew we had to share you with the world, but there's enough of you to go around the world a dozen times."

In words, graveled and dark, he whispered, "Allie, there's nothing left of me."

Now she was truly worried. She pulled back and looked into her father's eyes. The spark she expected to see was missing and he seemed unable to focus. "What are you talking about?"

He kissed her gently on her forehead. "I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

"You're scaring me."

A distant voice, a voice he heard but didn't recognize as his answered, "I thought you were my fearless one."

She'd heard it all before. "Right. Gia the clever, Toni the smart, Peri the musical, and Allie the fearless."

"God, did I pigeon-hole the four of you that badly?" Al turned his face away in shame.

She saw how disturbed her comment made her beloved father. "No, Daddy. Trouble is it's pretty accurate. In fact, Mom says I'm exactly like you and I like that. I'd give anything to be like you."

Turning back to his youngest, he took her shoulders in his hands. "No, please don't try to be like me. Nothing connects anymore."

"Dad, I think we should go home."

By now, Beth noticed their conversation and came over. "Anything wrong?"

If he wasn't going to say it, then she would. "Dad's not feeling well, Mom. I don't think he should go to the party."

Beth, as was her habit, turned into a nurse. She immediately checked for fever, pulse and respiration. "Everything seems in order. You feel sick, Al?"

"No, just tired and I earned that, don't you think?" He flashed a very convincing smile that only served to prove that his skill as a practiced liar was still sharp. "Listen, I promise to rest a little." With that, he shooed away his two girls and sat back enjoying the flight, even if not flying himself. That's right, he wasn't flying the jet, but he couldn't for the life of him remember where they were going or how the jet stayed in the air without him being in the cockpit.

* * *

By six o'clock that evening, the party was going very well. The gowns were glorious, the tuxedos elegant, and the fancy dress uniforms created just enough of a sensation. When Al finally released Sam for inspection Donna gasped in total appreciation of the look. The usually conventional Dr. Beckett looked smashing in a not-so-conventional Armani tux. Sam didn't gasp at Donna. He simply lost his breath. With Beth's help, she decided to wear a red, body hugging, spaghetti strapped sheath that left little to the imagination and she stunned her husband. When the Becketts entered the Grand Ballroom, all eyes turned.

Al wore the most formal of Navy formalwear, his tailcoat replete with every ribbon it was possible for a now three-star Vice Admiral to receive. He opted not to wear his military sword which was a faux pas, but he didn't care. Beth slipped on a burgundy strapless number that let the world know she still had the body of a woman half her age and she was proud of it. Together, they made the second most noticed appearance of the night and they were very delighted to let Sam and Donna shine.

One of the nicer surprises for the evening was the arrival of the other three Calavicci daughters, Gia, Toni, and Peri. Gia and Toni brought their husbands. Peri, a musician, came with Mitchell Bering, a young television actor on a top ten sitcom.

The staff served surprisingly tasty Copper River salmon, sautéed exotic mushrooms and rice pilaf right before the endless speeches and toasts and photos taken and introductions to people that meant nothing to either time traveler. Photo opportunities increased with Mitchell's presence and the press, who were expected to leave right after the speeches, remained and followed the actor all night long.

The music began with the honorees having the first dance. To the delight of the older couple, Sam requested Georgia on My Mind. Al held onto his beautiful bride as if they were teenagers slow dancing at the prom. He unashamedly kissed her neck revealing to all the passion he still felt for the woman who, through the grace of GodTimeFateWhatever and Sam, waited eight long years for him to come home from hell. Sam and Donna watched and noted the obvious proof that growing older with the right person only increased love and desire.

The song ended and the band started in on a tango. Show time! Al kissed Beth on the hand, spun her toward Sam and deftly changed partners. Both men were fine dancers and they loved flirting with the other's wife. The women fed into the act with their own flair for the dramatic. They were having more fun than they had expected, more fun than they thought possible. With the conclusion of the song came spontaneous applause from the crowd and true, carefree laughter from the dancers. It was the most carefree Al had been in years, but in seconds the charm disappeared. He kept up the illusion of abandon, but his heart fell through the floor realizing the temporary nature of his happiness. Something was not right, but he sure as hell couldn't figure it out. Something about the Project wasn't as complete as they thought. He finally decided he'd have to get Sam alone and ask him for help.

The dancing continued for hours. An exhausted Admiral made his way to a couch at the room's perimeter. Donna sat down next to him as Sam waltzed by with Peri, and Mitchell charmed Beth. Allegra was a couch away holding her own in conversation with the young senatorial candidate from Illinois, Barack Obama. "Al, you have to be proud of your girls."

Without a doubt his daughters were beautiful, bright and talented, but he said, "I'm scared, Donna. I don't want to leave them, but I think I have to." He didn't know where that came from or why he said out loud the words in his heart.

She took his hands, "Al, something's going on. We all can see it and I have to tell you, you're frightening us a little. Are you feeling well?" He shrugged and shook his head as if he wasn't sure what the answer was. The odd response sent a chill through the young woman. "Maybe the night's gone on long enough. It's almost midnight. Let me find Beth and you can go back upstairs." Donna smiled. "Sam and I will make your apologies."

Allegra noticed the panic growing on her father's face and excused herself. She sat at her father's side. "Daddy, are you okay?"

Donna said, "Allie, why don't you and your dad go to the room. I'll get your mom." She looked Allie in the eye telling her something was gravely wrong. "Al, Beth will be right there."

He nodded and concentrated on getting up without Donna or Allie noticing the intensity of the effort. He managed it, barely. The band was playing Someone to Watch Over Me. Giving Donna a fatherly kiss on the cheek, he smiled at her and lightly whispered, "Good-bye."

Donna was concerned to hear him say the word as if he were never returning. "Good-bye?" She tried to lighten her concern, "You're just going upstairs." He said nothing, but walked toward the exit with Allie holding his hand.

Tails don't leave a room quietly, but with Allie in tow, the Admiral did his best. At the bank of elevators, he smiled at the beautiful young woman he fathered. "Listen sweetie, I'm fine. Go back to the party. I'm just getting old."

"Aunt Donna said I should go with you," and she really didn't want to leave his side anyhow.

"Go back to the party." Like he did with Donna, he kissed her cheek and whispered, "Good-bye." The elevator door opened and he entered alone, smiling at Allie to placate her fears. "I'm fine." The Admiral lit the button for the nineteenth floor and fell back against the wall exhausted, grateful for the quiet solitude away from the ballroom. A kind of cold numbing crawled through him, his mind erased like an old blackboard washed down after a full day of lessons. Conscious awareness drifted to some other place as he watched his vacant remains slide to the floor to be discovered by the next people trying to get to their rooms.

* * *

She paced slowly and deliberately. "How delicious. It's a start, but now the real work begins."

The man's bright, breezy outfit lit the room more than the intense white light from above. "We know you're up to it, darling. Just remember, you must be brilliant and they must never know."

"That goes without saying." Her smile contained evil. "Absolutely without saying."

**  
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	2. Let the Games Begin

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**

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**

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

* * *

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter Two - Let the Games Begin**

An odd array of people assembled in the waiting room at St. Joseph's Hospital. Donna and the young Calaviccis sat in their dress clothes worrying about Al. Sam and Beth were in the trauma station with the Admiral. Every kind of monitor attached to his body, but none of the readings explained the comatose state Al descended into. Tears clouded Beth's reasoning. "Sam, I can't figure this at all."

"I don't know, Beth. He seems stable, but why isn't he conscious?" Beth's tears finally poured out in a voice of despair and Sam held her close, trying to comfort her and gaining as much comfort from her as he gave. "I think we should get Al checked in."

The staff doctor started to usher them out of the cubicle. "That sounds like a good idea. Why don't you go talk to your families and I'll be out in a minute. We called admitting and transport is coming in a few minutes to take him to the VIP room." Beth didn't want to leave. "Mrs. Calavicci, he's stable. Right now, you need to let us take care of your husband."

Sam knew Beth wasn't going to leave unless someone other than an ER doctor asked her to. He didn't want to leave either, but he thought it might be best for Beth to get into more comfortable clothes and all of a sudden his tux felt remarkably inappropriate. "Beth, he's right. Donna and the girls are waiting. Come on."

A sudden rage came forth. "He didn't desert you for ten years, Sam. How can you leave him now?" As she heard the words, she regretted them.

The woman's anger was misplaced and Sam completely understood why. "I'm just going to change clothes and come back."

Her eyes apologized as she told him, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it, Sam. What a stupid thing to say." She gently took her husband's hand. "Oh, Al." Putting her face near his, she passionately kissed his mouth hoping for a reaction, but none came. "Let's go, Sam. I want to get back as soon as possible."

While there was probably some legitimate news in the Admiral's illness, the media vultures descended on the hospital and the distressed family. Tight-lipped, Beth walked past the cameras without telegraphing her most intense fear. This bottomless horror in her heart presented itself before, but when? It nagged at her, until it finally smacked her in the face; that agonizing day in 1967 when a Navy officer came to Balboa to tell her Al was missing in action. Now, the same hated question plagued her: _Is my husband alive or dead?_

The girls and their escorts left the hospital and chose to wait for news in the Calavicci's suite at the hotel. They were four quite lovely Calavicci clones, looking every bit their father's daughters. They had his curly hair, dark eyes, full lips and long eyelashes. Though their faces made them obviously Calavicci, their personalities were diverse and a testament to their parents' recognition of their individuality.

Giovanna and Antonia were twins with identical faces. Both were high achievers at school, had serious pursuits and Al's leadership ability, but their careers went in far different directions. They let their imaginations soar, but Gia's soared on the written page as a health and medicine writer the _Washington Post. _Her nursing degree and interest in words were put to good use at the paper. Toni was an Annapolis graduate and,like her father, joined NASA to follow him into space and create a space exploration legacy, the first offspring of an astronaut to do so.

In keeping with their uniqueness, they married very different men. Gia's husband Paolo Benedetti taught Romance languages at Georgetown University. Their two sons, Dino and Marco were brought up bi-lingual and Al loved teaching them the Italian that most little boys shouldn't learn. Kevin Nicholas, Toni's husband, a Navy Captain, met his bride when he too won an appointment to NASA. They named their only child after the Admiral. Little Albert was called Alby and was the spitting image of Gramps from his curly hair to his wild temperament.

The only real musical talent in the family turned up in abundance through Peri. Her trio **_Disarray_** enjoyed great success on the cabaret scene. Peri had her father's sense of showmanship, style, and his absolute flare for the absurd. Mitchell Bering was a real fan of **_Disarray_** and an even bigger fan of the stunningly beautiful, smoky-voiced, Perigrina Calavicci.

Born seven years after Peri, Allie was still a puzzle in everyone's eyes, especially her own. She indeed had Al's reckless streak and his sense of daring. Her skill under the hood of a car made her a legend in high school and Al secretly thought this little girl might end up behind the wheel of a sleek formula one racer. When she was very young, you could usually find her hanging onto her dad's pant leg trying to find out why things work. Unlike her sisters who let their curly hair grow long and flowing, she kept hers almost as short as her Dad's. She said it was easier to take care of, but Beth knew it was something else. She wanted to be just like her dad. At only five feet one inch tall, Allie was the tiny one; the runt just like her father had been when he was her age. Allie was in the unhappy position of living up to three sisters who managed to be very accomplished at very young ages.

Now these four young women and the three men in their lives sat together wondering and worrying about the Admiral. Gia looked at her sisters. "This sucks."

The others smiled. Peri shook her head. "Always the right words, Gia."

Toni stood up and walked toward her father's adjoining room. "I can't believe this. I mean, he brought a crippled spacecraft home without so much as a scratch."

Inheriting her father's short fuse, Allie snapped, "What does that have to do with anything? That was nearly 30 years ago. He's sick _now_ and there's no reason."

Peri was a shrewd observer and absolutely the least academically oriented of the four. "No reason? Except for traveling through time, he's had just a normal life these past ten years. Damn it, why are you surprised something like this happened? He's been mucking around in that Imaging Chamber since 1995. The damn thing has a ring of radium surrounding it. It's a wonder he doesn't glow in the God damn dark."

Toni barked, "Shut up, Peri."

"Right, little Miss Annapolis." Mitchell took Peri's hand to help calm her down.

Gia took control. "Stop it. This is just what we need to be doing."

With an apologetic tone Peri added, "I'm sorry. I'm just scared."

There was an uneasy silence. Mitchell looked at them all and whispered, "Time travel, space ships, this is like a scene from Passions," and with that came quiet, low-key laughter and knowledge that a small bit of tension just flew away.

Cold fluorescent lighting and the sounds of monitors filled the hospital room. Beth sat next to her husband, holding his icy, motionless hand. Sam and Donna poured over the chart that graphed Al's progress, but there had been no progress, just a steady, slow downward spiral into nothingness. His lungs breathed, his heart beat, but his brain was absent of thought. It only maintained his autonomic nervous system. Any glimmer of Al Calavicci was completely gone for no apparent reason. The man on the bed in front of them was nothing more than a living corpse. There weren't even any plugs to pull to end the family's agony. Al's body was surviving. Sam could only close his eyes to the chart in front of him. Handing the document to Donna, he went to his friend's side and gently touched his fingers to Al's hand.

From Michelangelo's sublime fresco of God reaching out to man, to the innocence of E.T. touching Elliot for the first time, the image of fingers meeting is intensely strong for a reason; it is a natural reaction to testing reality. It was the first thing Sam did when he returned home from leaping. He had put out his hand and touched Al's shoulder. When it didn't pass through the body, he understood that he was really home. He hadn't realized loneliness could physically hurt so badly. A second later, tears poured down Sam's face as he held onto Al for dear life. Al simply held him as any father would hold a frantic child.

Each of them had held a hand, brushed errant curls from his forehead, moved his head into a better position. They touched him often, hoping that touch would help bring Al back. Looking into the sad eyes of the desperate nurse, Sam said, "I don't know, Beth. Let me try something." Beth moved away and Sam leaned over the bed, carefully making sure the IVs and monitor cables weren't disturbed. Tenderly, he lifted Al's limp body from the bed and held him close. "Please don't do this to me. I need you."

Bang! A piercing shriek blasted their ears. It hurt like holy hell, but it was meant to. Al's heart stopped and everyone within earshot had to respond. Sam dropped Al back to the bed and began to pound the Admiral's chest. Beth moved to provide artificial respiration. Within minutes, life support machinery took over for the human team and the misery of waiting and doing nothing began.

* * *

There was no way to tell them and that was the most frustrating thing. He saw it all. He was watching from someplace, someplace gray and close, but he wasn't watching it. He was there. No, that wasn't it. This was all a dream. He hadn't felt well. He was overly tired. That's it, a dream, but he heard Beth's fearful cries and Sam's shouts of anguish. Those sounds cut his soul mercilessly and threw his dream theory out the window. "God, I must be dead." He closed his eyes against the sight of his loved ones' grief. "Not now, not yet."

"Darling, you know what they say, 'Be careful what you ask for. You might get it.'"

* * *

The plans for Phase III were on hold, the meetings canceled and participants returned home with sadness. Despite the long hours that had too quickly turned into days, Beth, Sam and Donna still sat at Al's side. His heart started again and his life saved, but for what? There was still no sign of spirit in the body of their dearest friend. Machine noises told them the body was a living being, but somehow they knew Al wasn't there anymore and the pain of this dichotomy was only just beginning to become a reality.

Beth was the first to speak in over an hour of their vigil. Her voice was flat and unemotional. "There have been too many years."

Sam tried to figure it out before asking, "What do you mean?"

"Vietnam was two years flying missions, then eight years missing. That's 10 years. Then NASA and traveling in space. Another ten and then 10 years with you lost. That's 30 years of wondering from day to day if he'll come home to me safe. Thirty years, Sam. How long will this last now?"

There was no answer for Beth so Sam offered none. Instead he sat across the room from her, watching his friend's chest raise and lower in rhythm with the apparatus keeping him alive. "The machines can keep him alive for years, Beth. You know that."

"This isn't life. Al hates this kind of stuff. If he could see this, he'd have us court-martialed."

It sounded to Sam that Beth was thinking about turning off the machines and letting Al die. He didn't want that to happen and had to tell her. "Listen, Beth, until we know what's wrong with him, we can't even begin to think about pulling the plugs."

With icy eyes, she glared at him. "I'm not pulling any plugs. How could you think that?"

Her reaction embarrassed Sam. It hadn't crossed Beth's mind and yet it had crossed his. He wanted to see life when he looked down at Al's body, but nothing there indicated that Admiral Calavicci still survived. "I feel like I should be doing something and I haven't the faintest notion what it is. I'm a doctor. I should be able to figure this out."

She didn't mean to hurt his feelings, but her own were frazzled enough to make her say cruel things to people she loved. With a smile and a touch of her hand she tried to soothe Al's best friend. "Sam, when will you learn you can't figure Al out. No one can."

It was supposed to make him feel better, but it didn't. He only felt increasingly hopeless and silently, in his mind, he started planning funeral services for the national hero lying before him.

* * *

Al paced the room's edges, never taking his eyes off the tall, dark, lovely woman who spoke to him. In another time, she would have set his Italian blood steaming, but right now, her stone coldness took all pleasure out of her beauty. Something was familiar, but he was certain he'd never seen her before. "Who the hell are you?"

"Oh my and they told me you were charming. I'm disappointed."

His computer-like brain was mapping his surroundings, but each glance seemed to morph into another space. He decided to maintain his conversation. "You're disappointed? Yeah, well, it's breaking my heart, too. What is this place?"

"You're also supposed to be unpredictable. This is so boring." Miss Creepy 2005 mocked, "'Who are you? Where am I?' Really Admiral, I expected more."

It all fell into place in a fraction of a second. "Damn," and he started to laugh. "Ain't this a kick in the butt?"

The little rodent caught on far too quickly for her. A few anxious thoughts later, she lost the startle from her eyes, turned away and said, "How colloquial. What on earth does that mean?"

He suddenly had the upper hand, "Aw, now I'm disappointed," he paused for a moment. Moving closer and closer to her, he made sure his eyes were boring into hers when he said, "After all, Lothos is supposed to know everything. Right, Zoë?"

A sly smile curled her ruby lips, "Bravo, Admiral, bravo. You've redeemed yourself." Purring, she added, "Somewhat."

His enthusiasm was non-existent. "Yippee." Like the boxer he'd been, Al kept his eyes on the prize as he danced the edges of the ring. "So, who leaped into me?"

"What we've done, darling, is sheer genius."

Standing just enough out of reach, he tried to dismiss her words even though he knew he should be scared to death. "Trust me, sweetheart, I've been done to by the best."

The laugh was ugly, not in sound, but in purpose. "Not yet, Admiral."

The thought filled his veins with ice, but he covered his reaction. "That's what you think."

She had visions in her head of the complete torture planned for him, "That's what I know."

Al paced the room, the balls of his feet bouncing lightly off the chilled flooring. "Cut to the chase. What do you want?"

With an evil Al hadn't witnessed in decades, she whispered in a slow steady voice, "You, my love. I want you."

"Why? We've finished the Project." The idea seemed completely absurd. "Sam isn't leaping around anymore."

She batted off the statement like it was an irksome little mosquito, "Lothos can't be bothered with Sam Beckett. He's a non-entity. What is it you call the effect? Swiss cheese, I think. How quaint." Her lip sneered when she told him, "No, no, the good doctor isn't worth our time."

Al laughed at the absurdity. "And I am? Come on, that's nuts."

It was Zoë's turn to walk around Al's pristine cage. "Unfortunately, you have a unique gift. That odd little brain of yours remembers everything."

"I don't have a photographic memory." He still laughed; his amusement genuine.

"True, but you know too much about us."

"Everything is documented. Anyone with the proper clearance can read all about you, Alia, Lothos and Thames." He said the name, but he had no idea where he got it. "Thames? Who the hell is Thames?"

With a dramatic sigh Zoë shook her head, "See what I mean? **_You_** don't even know what you know. This cannot be tolerated at all, Admiral."

Al had been the recipient of more hell than a human being ought to get, but something told him the hell he was entering was going to test every survival instinct in his repertoire. "Okay, what do you want?"

She shook her aristocratic head and mumbled to herself, "How rude of me." Looking into Al's brown eyes she continued, "We just want a bit of your time so you can learn your lesson. You must never muck around in our business again." Her eyes diverted to the ceiling. She blithely summoned, "Lothos, he's yours," and half a second later, Al dropped to the floor, his body encased in towers of fire. The intense, inhuman pain was almost enough to make him give in to whatever Zoë and Lothos wanted of him, however they weren't willing to share their wants just yet. The blazing torture pulled charred skin from his body. He couldn't stop ugly screams from sounding out, even when blistering flames raged down his throat and into his lungs.


	3. Battlelines Are Drawn

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

** Too Smart for His Own Good **

**Chapter Three - Battlelines Are Drawn  
**

The ferocious shriek made Sam and Beth jump to Al's side. There was no controlling the ear-piercing noise. No doubt now that Al was alive and, at this moment, profoundly hurting.

Beth grabbed his cold hand, put it to her face and tried to convince him, "Sweetheart, you're okay. Can you hear me?"

Sam put his hand on Al's chest and lightly massaged, trying to make contact with the Admiral, "Al, can you hear me?" The cries intensified. The ghastly fear on his face scared the room. They had no idea where the pain came from or how to relieve it. They didn't realize their touch only made his skin burn more and more.

He responded to their ministrations with agonizing wails. Beth finally recognized the more they handled Al, the more he screamed. "Don't touch him, Sam. Take your hand away! We're hurting him more!"

Sam pulled away from Al, not quite believing Beth, but not wanting to hurt his friend. He looked at Beth, "What set this off?"

"I have no idea, but it proves he's alive."

They wanted to hold him, to comfort him, but their touch, the thing that would make them feel better only provided more fuel for the fire consuming the Admiral. Al's screams gradually tapered to a few awful whimpers. Beth burst into tears, great heaving sobs that Sam consoled with a brotherly embrace. "Dear God, Sam, what is going on here?" Holding each other, they listened to Al's sounds change from moans to an occasional gasp and then to the nothingness that was there before the outburst. Al was gone from them again. "We have to find the doctor and tell him what happened."

"I'll go." Sam left the room and stood outside the door wondering why, for one brief moment, one flash of a millisecond, his own body seemed to recognize the horrible evil that Al was suffering. Then he realized that it was the blessed curse of love. His friend was hurting beyond belief and empathy was biting him in the ass. Shaking the thoughts from his head, he continued to the nurse's station.

Back in Al's room, Beth stared at her comatose husband. The mind she so admired, the mind that kept him alive through eight years of hellish torture, that wonderful mind was a source of torture now. "You ever going to tell us what's going on here, flyboy?" There was nothing. "Baby, talk to me." There was nothing at all.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Over the next days, the family took turns being with their adored husband, friend, father; all except Allegra whose mother insisted she go to class. For some reason, Beth felt the teen should stay in school not realizing the young girl had to put up with the whispers and stares of her classmates. Allie wanted to be with her father. She was his very special child; the one everyone said was an exact duplicate of the Admiral from her short curly hair to her sizzling temper.

Back home and alone, Allie walked the long corridors of Project Quantum Leap feeling a sadness she never dreamed possible. She ditched her older sisters, tired of feeling like a fifth wheel. Her sisters had husbands or a boyfriend. Her mother was rightly staying by her dad's side. Even Uncle Sam and Aunt Donna had more important things on their minds. It all made sense, but she felt like the outsider again. There was a boy at school named Aaron. He liked her and he was doing his best to help, but that was at school and she was at the project, alone.

Sometimes she thought her dad was the only person in the world who would ever understand her. He knew what it was like being different and she sure felt different, a lot. If he died, then she'd really be all alone. Oh, people would argue against that point of view, but then they didn't understand the way her dad did.

She looked at the watch on her wrist. It was too big for her, but it was his watch, the one sent home with his belongings after he was shot down in Vietnam. The timepiece needed winding and a lot of care, but she didn't mind. The watch was hers now and since that night in Albuquerque when he collapsed alone in an elevator, it never left her wrist.

Her dad gave it to her on her 16th birthday just a few months earlier. After everyone had gone home, he placed it on her wrist. The memory made her smile. It was only a few months ago, but right now, it felt like a lifetime. The man that entrusted her with his special watch was miles away in a hospital, dying. The sadness in her heart was matched only by the legendary Calavicci anger, another trait inherited from her father. She found herself at the door to the Project Control Room and with more righteousness than she actually had, she demanded, "Ziggy, let me in!"

She didn't expect any response. It was all posturing. She'd seen her father do it a thousand times, but he always expected a reaction. She didn't. Her clearance only let her into the hallways and her dad's office, but for whatever reason, the door slid open. Startled by the event, she stood there and gawked. Ziggy spoke, "The Control Room is accessible, Allegra. Are you coming in?"

Her brain told her to run like hell, but she was Al Calavicci's kid. An adventure was opening up before her eyes and she wasn't about to let it pass by. She took a deep breath to gather her courage, took a second to wipe the smile from her face and marched into the Control Room, the inner sanctum she only heard whispered tales of.

The room was less cluttered than she imagined. She thought there would be computer terminals all over the place and little geek cubicles where they - whoever they were - sat and input geek stuff for her dad and Uncle Sam. Here she saw sleek metallic walls and a multi colored orb hanging down over a console sitting on a pedestal. "It looks like a space ship."

"Actually, Allegra, if you talk to your father, he would tell you that a spacecraft is very different from the Control Room. There isn't much room in a spacecraft."

There wasn't a lot to see, but maybe too much. She wanted to touch everything, but was afraid to disturb the computer. She looked up into the orb, "Are you Ziggy?"

"The entire project is me, Allegra. I'm not confined to this room only. All the surrounding rooms are part of me. The most important part of me is housed inside the console in front of you." As Allie walked closer to see what Ziggy meant, she saw the hundreds of heat sensitive buttons that Gooshie used to keep track of Sam and her father. It absolutely astounded her. Ziggy kept talking, "Inside the console are the neuro-chips. Do you know what those are?" She shook her head. "Neuro-chips link your father to Dr. Beckett. They incorporate neurological material from both of them. Without the Admiral, I could never find Dr. Beckett. In fact, in several leaps, some of their neurological material merged and each is now a literal part of the other."

She had some information about the experiment and now that much of it was no longer classified she was learning more and more, but the neurological link between her father and Sam Beckett was news. "I don't understand what you mean. How are they a part of each other?"

"Your father's and Dr. Beckett's existences depend on each other. If your father dies, then a small part of Dr. Beckett dies, since your father is neurologically linked to him. I led you here purposely, Allegra, and I think you may know why."

Pacing around the room, an action remarkably reminiscent of the Admiral, she had an idea where Ziggy was going, but didn't dare speak the thought aloud.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Jim Langford, Al's primary physician, had no ideas left. After three weeks of hospitalization, every possible test was run on the Admiral and nothing could account for his condition, nothing at all. In a desperate last attempt to explain his comatose state and his excruciatingly painful awakenings, a specialist was brought in to talk to Beth, Sam and Donna. Dr. Langford ushered them into a conference room where Matthew Ballard waited, sitting at the head of the table with Al's file in front of him. He stood as they entered.

"Dr. Matt Ballard, I'd like you to meet Beth Calavicci, and Sam and Donna Beckett."

Hand shakes and appropriate greetings were exchanged and no one was comfortable. They sat down, Ballard resuming his spot at the head of the table. Langford sat a safe distance away, able to avoid their eyes. He knew what was coming and anticipated an angry response.

"Dr. Langford called me in to consult about the Admiral. This is quite a puzzle, but we may be a little closer to solving the 'why' of it. I have to tell you, considering his medical history, he's some kind of miracle to begin with. It's surprising that he's functioned this well so long."

Beth's tolerance for beating around the bush disappeared years before. She was an educated medical professional and she knew her stuff. With more than a bit of sarcasm she said, "Yeah, we all know. He's amazing. Now, what do you think is wrong with him?"

Dr. Ballard took in a long breath and began his analysis of the problem. "This project he and Dr. Beckett have been working on has been exceedingly stressful." Looking at Sam, he continued, "I know you prematurely acted on the experiment and due to unforeseen circumstances you were unable to return for ten years. Ten years is a very long time, especially for someone the Admiral's age. He was on call for you 24 hours a day and when not with you, he was working with your wife on the programs needed to finally bring you home."

Beth's fingers drummed the table quietly. "We were there. Cut to the chase, Dr. Ballard. I'm a nurse. Sam is an MD. We can understand what you want to say if you'll just stop dancing and say it."

Dr. Ballard began to open Al's file. "I understand your wanting my diagnosis, but I feel it necessary to provide the background material first." Thumbing through the material, he found the document regarding Al's earlier history. "In his childhood, he was abandoned by his mother, his father died, his sister died, the chronic running away. Then he spent eight years being held captive by the Vietnamese. The fact that he became an Admiral and an astronaut is testament to his intelligence, courage and strength."

Sam wondered where Ballard was going with his diatribe. "You're trying to make a point here and I agree with Beth. Just spit it out. What are you leading to?" Then he thought to ask, "And what is your specialty?"

Ballard took a big breath, "Psychiatry."

A loud exhale and a push back in his chair had Sam saying, "You think he's psychotic."

A slight nod was followed by, "It's something to consider."

Beth's anger was immediate and violent. Standing up, she smacked her hands on the table and leaned right into Ballard's face. "You're telling me Al is crazy and that's why this is happening?"

"Not crazy, Mrs. Calavicci. The mind can be fragile and he has had more than enough trauma to make him find alternative methods to deal with the pain."

She pointed at the shrink and paced the edge of the room. "You're the crazy one, Dr. Ballard. If he's so delicate, why now? Why when things are calming down?"

"Just for that reason, Mrs. Calavicci. He finally had a chance to let down his guard and once he did, the demons inside took hold."

Sam gently brought Beth back to her chair. "Okay, it's a theory, a lousy one, but a theory."

Donna tried to find a way to have Sam and Beth listen more carefully to Dr. Ballard. "I know it must be hard to hear this, but maybe we should consider it. There are medications for mental illness and if those meds can bring him back to us, we owe it to Al to try."

It was hard for Beth to believe what she was hearing. Even harder to think Donna agreed with him. "You think this nozzle is right?"

In all honesty, the idea that Al was mentally ill had occurred to Donna, but she knew the reaction she would get from both her husband and Al's wife. "It crossed my mind, Beth. It sure explains a lot of his recent behavior."

Dr. Ballard asked, "What kind of behavior?" he opened a notepad and clicked a pen ready to write down more ammunition.

She was caught now and there was no way out. Maybe if Beth and Sam heard it from someone who loved Al, they'd be more inclined to believe it. "Since we got Sam home, Al's been full of self doubt and that's not like him. I've seen him staring at Allie and look like he was about to burst into tears. He'd be at his desk for 30 hours or more and not realize it. There were days when he wouldn't eat. Beth, you said he was losing weight. You even told me he wasn't sleeping. Two weeks before this happened, I said goodnight to him at his desk and when we met the next morning, he hadn't been home. He worked through the night and didn't know it." All sorts of odd little things began popping into her mind. "And the pacing. There were times when I thought he'd wear a path in the rug." She couldn't stop talking. "He pretty much forgot about the party in Albuquerque."

Sam put his hand on her arm, "Alright, Donna. We've noticed all that, but that's typical Al."

"No, it isn't." Backing off a bit, she quietly told him, "I've been here at the project, Sam. I saw how he was with Beth and the girls. This stuff isn't like Al at all. He paid more attention to his wife than any other husband I ever saw including you. Al has been acting oddly since you came home and I can't help but think Dr. Ballard may have something. Please, give him a chance to help Al. Nothing else is working."

That was certainly true. No medication could help with a disease they couldn't name. Beth sat back and let Donna's words sink in. Her world was spinning like a cardboard box in a tornado. She didn't want to believe Al was mentally ill and that his illness was so severe it completely incapacitated him. On the other hand, how could she deny Al a chance at recovery just because she didn't like the diagnosis? She felt her own head begin to hurt. "So, let's say I buy into this ridiculous psychosis theory of yours, what's the procedure?"

"Medications at first."

In unison, Beth and Sam reacted, "At first?"

Sam then had a knot in his stomach grab him so tight he almost threw up. "You want to try shock therapy, don't you?"

"Well, we can try the medications, but I don't believe that will prove to be enough."

The time traveler had few conscious memories of his leaps, but there was dread, a complete terror that gripped him when any reference was made to a leap into Havenwell Hospital. He suffered shock treatments and nearly lost his mind completely. If Al hadn't been there to bring him back, not just his mind would have been lost. Now Sam had to consider electroshock therapy as a friend, a cure for the deep psychosis his personal savior delivered him from. "No shock treatments. I won't have it."

Donna took Sam's hand. "Sam, it's different now. It's not like Havenwell. Al could get better. You want that don't you?"

Now he was angry. "Don't talk to me like I'm a child." He turned his attention to Beth. "You can't give him electroshock. It will kill him."

Beth didn't know what to do. All she wanted was her husband back home with her. At this point, she'd take him in any state he was in. If shock would do it . . . She shook her head against the idea. Her gut was telling her differently. "No. This is not mental illness. I've known Al over 40 years. I know his demons intimately. I nursed him when he came home from Vietnam looking like a stick with open sores. The nights when he woke up screaming because he remembered some unholy terror, you think I don't know what eats at him? Your file tell you he was tied to his bed at the orphanage to keep him from running away? Or that he was physically and sexually abused at two of the foster homes they farmed him out to? Some of the marks on his back aren't from Vietnam, Dr. Ballard. When he was eleven, the pig that Child Protection sent him to live with decided to sell him to a couple of guys, nice folks into snuff films and chicken porn. You know what those are?"

The psychiatrist had heard the terms, but sexual abuse wasn't his specialty. "I'm familiar, somewhat, with the terms."

The Admiral's defender could tell that Sam and Donna didn't know what she was talking about. "Edification time. Chicken porn is child pornography. Snuff films are movies of people being sexually tortured to death. Combine the two and that's what Al survived. He was lucky though. They told him he was pretty, too pretty to kill so he didn't have to die from the beatings, just get his picture published in sadomasochistic kiddy porn magazines. He lived with those bastards for six months. Did you know that? The fact that he was a chronic runaway shows the kind of stamina he had. Al has life skills most people never consider let alone draw on. This is not a man who snaps when life calms down. Whatever is doing this to him is not mental illness. That's final!" Then it hit her. She exploded with Al's most protected secret. She almost felt like vomiting. "And if he knew I told you about the porn, he'd have my head. God, what did I do? No one was ever supposed to know." Her shame in this betrayal forced her eyes shut.

Sam hadn't ever heard the childhood abuse issues and now his own thoughts were changing. Maybe Ballard was right. No one could survive all that and not have some kind of breakdown in his life. "Beth, calm down. Let's hear him out."

She couldn't believe what she heard. "You too, now?"

"I don't know. I don't have any other answers for you. We have to pursue all angles here. I'm willing to try his way if it can help Al."

"You're pretty easily swayed, Sam. So tell me something, when are you going to have your breakdown? After all, you had ten years of non-identity. No one knew who you were except Al. You lived in some sort of stasis for days on end. What was going on in your head? Seems to me you should be mentally ill, too." Her point adamantly made, she settled back in her chair and looked directly into Al's primary physician's eyes. "So, Dr. Langford, I guess bringing Freud here means you're giving up."

"I don't know what to do for him anymore. He's stable, but comatose. We've exhausted all our resources, Beth."

A light bulb clicked on. "Oh, I get it. You can't figure it out, so it's time to empty the bed. He's costing too much. Ship him out to a nursing home. I guess there's a lot of call for the VIP room in St. Joseph's."

As much as Langford wanted to debate the issue, the cost of the Admiral's care and the unending press coverage (which repeatedly pointed out the hospital's inability to diagnose the national hero) made the doctor's life miserable. He was catching hell from the media and from the hospital administrators. As much as he liked the Admiral, he wanted nothing more to do with his treatment. Langford didn't like the attention he was getting and willingly went along with Ballard's idea. It took the pressure off the internist. "Maybe a rehabilitation facility can fulfill his needs better. He'll get daily physical therapy. He needs that to maintain muscle tone."

Beth stood up and addressed everyone. "I'll need at least a day to get everything I need. Sam, we have to arrange a hospital bed and the project pharmacy has to be stocked with his meds. You're a doctor, so you'll have to write the scripts. Donna, could you arrange ambulance transportation? I want him out of here tomorrow morning. I'll take care of him at home." The door was thrown open and she stormed off toward Al's room.

Sam followed her down the hall and caught up to her just as the elevator door closed behind him. "Beth, I didn't mean to contradict you. I don't know what else to do."

"You made your point, but I won't let them give Al electroshock."

"How about trying the medications? Will you agree to that?"

She was caught. If she said no and it turned out they were right, then she would be responsible for keeping treatment from her husband. She couldn't deny Al any possible chance no matter how slim she knew that chance was. "Psych meds are pretty strong stuff. He'll have to be monitored daily. Your medical skills up to that? You haven't practiced in years."

"Mine might not be, but yours are. I'll follow your lead."

The torch was handed off. Beth was being told that Al's life was now in her hands. She had to ask herself if she was up to it, but the answer was almost immediate, "We'll have to find a retrieval program."

"A retrieval program?"

"He and Donna found one to bring you home, now you and I have to design one for Al." Like a good Calavicci, her want to cry was suppressed by her need for control. The door slid open and she walked toward the VIP room that would soon no longer be her husband's home.


	4. First Contact

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter Four - First Contact**

For over an hour - or was it a month, he couldn't tell - Al's surroundings spun around him. The dizziness and intensity of the disorientation made death seem pretty appealing. However, that particular appeal had been presented to him before and he always managed to resist the temptation. The incessant buzzing sound started to trail off and everything slowed down finally. His hands shook. An icy chill in his bones made them feel actually brittle, as if any movement on his part might snap them. He didn't know exactly where in space any of his limbs were. Maybe he was seated or standing or lying down or floating in air. All of that seemed right, but it was only by seeing his hands and feet touching the floor that he knew he was lying flat in a cold sterile room.

So far, he managed to survive all of Lothos' tortures, but he had a gut feeling he was supposed to survive. The enjoyment here was in the infliction of pain. If he died, then the game, the fun, was over. Zoë walked in smiling, "Hello, Admiral. How are we today?"

There was no way he'd tell her the truth. "Peachy and you?"

"Splendid. We were monitoring your precious Beth. They're going to drug you now. They think you're mentally ill, so psychotic that you're doing all this to yourself. Isn't that a wonderful little surprise? Lothos now has a whole new perspective on your stay here."

He had to maintain any energy he might have. Wasting it with her word games wasn't on his list of priorities. "I'm thrilled."

She paid no attention to him at all. "Now instead of inventing little games for you, you'll get to replay games from the past."

The idea of reliving the terrors of his past made his blood run even colder than it already felt. He was not going to give in. "Hell, if I survived it the first time, I can do it again."

Still no reaction from him. "I thought moving chronologically would be fun, but then Lothos said random moments were so much better. You wouldn't be able to prepare yourself then. The cruelty of that," she turned to face him, "is incredibly wonderful, don't you think?"

He shakily stood up to face her and the upcoming agony. "I think Lothos isn't worth a pile of five cent washers. You're worth even less and that's a shame. You had potential, woman. Looks like yours shouldn't be wasted."

She let out a tiny bemused sigh, "I'm hurt, Admiral. By the way, this first little peek at your past was my idea. Enjoy yourself." Her long legs took her away and Al waited for whatever was going to happen next.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

"Ziggy, why did you override the security to let me in?"

"I have a theory, Allegra. I'm not sure anyone will believe me, but in order to verify it, I'll need your help." The young girl was confused. Ziggy continued, "Your mesons and neurons match your father's better than any of your siblings, almost identical. I need you to go into the Imaging Chamber to find your father."

The statement puzzled her. Everyone knew where her father was. "Dad's in a hospital in Albuquerque. You know that."

"I'm not sure he is, at least I'm not sure that all of him is."

Allie was 16 years old, not a child, but still far from an adult. She couldn't even begin to understand the project her father and Uncle Sam designed, but if Ziggy needed her, that was that. "You need me to go where?"

"The Imaging Chamber is the room up the ramp to your right. Inside there is a silver disk on the floor. You have to stand on that disk while I try to center you on your father." There was a hesitation. Allie didn't move and Ziggy noticed. "You're right to be afraid. I'm not sure what you'll see in the Imaging Chamber."

"Do you have any ideas?"

"If I'm right, then you'll see your father wherever he has landed."

"You know that I don't understand any of this."

"You don't have to, but, Allegra, your father may be in more trouble than you think he is. What you're going to see may not be easy to see. On the other hand, if I'm wrong, you may see nothing at all."

"If he needs me, then I'm here."

"Oh, and just so you know, sometimes the Imaging Chamber can be a bit upsetting to your stomach. There is a bathroom opposite the entry. At any time, just take care of yourself." She was getting more nervous. "Allegra, I promise you, you will not be hurt by this. I won't allow anything to happen to you. Do you trust me?"

Most of her life she'd trusted Ziggy to bring her father home each night. So far, Ziggy had done okay. "I guess. I want my dad back and if I can help, I will."

"Good. Do you see that flashing box on the console?" She nodded. "Take that with you. It's called a handlink. That's how you and I will communicate."

She picked up the box and stared at all the lights and buttons. "I don't know how to work this."

"Just talk into it. If I have to give you any information, you'll see it on the handlink screen, so keep looking there. Your father had a tendency to whack it on occasions, but I recommend that you not try that. Are you ready?"

Her tone was decidedly fearful, but she said, "Sure, let's go." Her stride, the way she held her head, her courage were all replications of her father. She hesitated a fraction of a second when the door slid open, but setting her shoulders, she marched right onto the disk and called out, "Ziggy, center me on Dad."

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Beth and Sam walked into Al's room and nothing was different. The same machines monitored the same vital functions. The same ugly fluorescent lights illuminated the same IV stands. The same fluids dripped into his veins. Nothing changed. Nothing ever changed until he had an "episode" as they were now referred to. Beth's greeting didn't change either. Her hand gently pushed his curls from his forehead. She whispered into his ear, "Hi, honey," and then kissed his lips hoping for a return kiss from him. It hadn't happened since he was checked in. Nothing was different.

Sam walked to the other side and took Al's hand. "Hi, buddy." It wasn't that he expected a response. It's that he wished for one so badly it broke his heart to have it denied day after day. There was no active response from Al, not even an increase in heart rate that was abnormally steady. He was just there, a body with no substance.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Zoë walked out of his pretty cell and it began. Al was thrown against the wall hard. His breath disappeared and his head hurt. The room spun again and when it stopped, he was somewhere and sometime else. By skin and bone wrists tied together, Al hung, suspended from a tall pole. The pain in his arms and chest was killing. A shredded pair of pants cut short covered very little of his body. He felt the burning sun raise blister after blister. The swelling of his face kept him from seeing his surroundings. Seeing wasn't necessary though. The stench and the heat told him he was in Vietnam about to relive his most incomprehensibly hellish day. He told himself to remember it was only a memory and memories couldn't begin to touch the reality.

The guards yelled at him in Vietnamese spoken too quickly for him to understand. The words didn't matter anyhow. The upshot was always the same. Thin rubber strips made superior whips and each time one snapped down across his back, he flinched with the pain. It was only a memory. Another crack and the blood splattered. The ooze of wet blood evaporating off his burned skin was cooling and almost welcome, until the next whip came down and the next and the next. Each stripe forced an explosive sound of pain from his throat. Al tried not to give them the satisfaction of hearing the agony, but there was nothing he could do. Crack! He yelled out. But this was only a memory. It shouldn't hurt. Crack! He couldn't stop himself. His pain filled the jungle with human sounds of hell. Crack! Crack! And he finally begged forgiveness, the result his captors wanted. Capitulation and humiliation was the goal and they always won.

When they finally cut him down, he fell to the jungle floor. His hands had no feeling. His arms wouldn't move in the direction he asked them. Poked by bayonets and cattle prods, a jab to his ribs sent shocks through his gut. He retched, but with no food in his system, all that he vomited was blood. The bayonet pierced his arm; a stab of electricity arched his back, but these were only memories. They couldn't really hurt. It was just a cruel joke used by Lothos to taunt him.

Giving no thought to his injuries, the guards dragged Al to a bamboo cage and shackled him to the four corners, each arm and leg pulled as far as possible, leaving him open to any kind of damage they still felt the need to inflict. Sugar-water poured onto his face and chest, into the bleeding stab wound on his arm. It only took minutes for the ants to come, crawling from a gray hole at the edge of his vision, thousands of them all over his body, biting him, crawling into his ears and nose, trying to crawl into his mouth. He thought he couldn't hurt more, but every ant bite made him realize he was wrong. Each nip felt like a knife cutting through his thin skin. The sugar-water mixed with his blood and it all was finally too much. It sounded out as one long paralyzing wail that was never-ending.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Sam and Beth stood at the bedside listening to the screams and knowing nothing they did would stop them or whatever it was that created them. Nothing would stop Al, but time. This was one of the worst episodes he had. The terror on Al's face petrified Beth. It was so obvious he was in agony, a kind of agony nothing medical could initiate. Maybe it was mental illness. It was so apparent to her he was being tortured. She lost all composure when she heard him beg, "Please, I'll sign whatever you want. I'll sign!"

"Oh, God, Sam. He is mentally ill. Why didn't I see this?" She held onto Sam and cried at the psychological assassination of her husband.

Donna came rushing in. "I could hear Al from the elevator!" She saw Sam trying to comfort Beth. "He's talking!" She listened to his words and realized why Beth was beyond consoling, but Sam was with her. Donna went to Al's side and held him close. "It's okay, Al. You're home. Vietnam is over. You're home."

Hearing Donna brought Beth back to Al's side. She should be the one whispering those comforting words. "Please, Donna, let me hold him." Donna gently transferred the Admiral into his wife's arms. "I'm here, baby. You're home with me. The war is over, long over."

Sam and Donna looked at each other. They knew the truth. The war was just beginning.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Allie stood watching lights swirl around her. Ziggy tried for over an hour to find Al with no luck. Three upchucking trips to the bathroom later Allie yelled out, "Ziggy, I see something! Keep going!" Ziggy intensified the search, centering on the instant Allie cried out. Moments later the 16-year-old yelled out again, "Stop! I can see something! Stop! I know he's here!"

Ziggy settled in and Allie found herself in a place completely foreign to her experience. She had no idea what to do. She was just a kid involved in an experiment that wasn't supposed to involve her at all. The thought occurred to her to take a deep breath, but all of a sudden breathing seemed too hard. It took concentration, but finally her lungs expanded and she got air. "Ziggy? Where am I?" There was no sympathetic voice to provide guidance, but there was a handlink. Not sure of what to do, she looked at the view screen. It simply read, "Vietnam, 1972."

"Dad is here somewhere, isn't he?" She didn't need Ziggy to tell her where. A scream cut through the air. It was a terrifying sound, but one she had heard before, in the middle of the night when her father was having a nightmare. "Ziggy, where is he?"

Again she expected to hear an answer and then remembered the handlink. The view screen pointed her north. She crept through the brush and the camp came into view. She saw a trail of ugly ants and tried to brush them off her legs, but then she realized she was a hologram. Nothing she saw could touch her nor could she touch it. Grateful the ants weren't a worry, she walked further. The ants seemed to be moving toward a cage. A few steps closer and she saw a hand, then a bleeding arm. "Oh God, there's a person in there."

The handlink whistled and read "Inhabitant of cage - Admiral Calavicci."

She began to run toward him, not stopping to think what she would see. Her tender years and sheltered lifestyle didn't prepare her for the mess of a human before her. The terrible cries turned to whimpers of swallowed pain. He shook his head flinging the ants off, but they were in control of the situation and were taking their time. Allie dropped to her knees to see if she could help. "Daddy? Daddy?" The prisoner turned to see if he was dreaming. Her imagination had painted pictures of her father's incarceration, but none were as ugly as this reality. "Daddy, I'm here. What do I do to get you out?"

Speaking was hard, but he had to know, "How did you get here?"

She futilely tried to get the attacking insects off her father's face. "Ziggy thought she could find you. Oh, Daddy. I can't get the ants away."

"Go back now. It's too dangerous." He tried to shake the ants off his eyes.

"But no one knows you're here. They think you're in the hospital."

"Tell Uncle Sam it's Lothos and Zoë. Now go!"

"Lobo and who?"

Spitting out the ants creeping into his mouth, he repeated, "Lothos and Zoë. Get out of here, Allie. If they find you here . . ." The thoughts of what they would do to his precious child almost made him scream again. "You have to go. They don't want me dead. They're not going to kill me. Go before they see you."

The sight of her father's agonized body froze her to the spot. She didn't even know how to stand up. "I don't want to leave."

Al's pain was only magnified with his child's presence. She was too young to see him like this, too young to be used by Ziggy for some experiment. "Allie, tell Ziggy to open the door. Then find Sam. You tell him Lothos and Zoë. Lothos and Zoë. Got it?"

"Yes, sir." Her feet still couldn't move."

"Allie, get the hell out of here."

Her father's life was in her hands and she finally got it together and took command. Firmly she told the handlink, "Ziggy, open the door, now!" The white light of safety beckoned. She moved toward it, looking back one last time at her father still fighting off the biting insects. "I'll be back, Daddy. I promise you."

The ramp down into the Control Room wasn't steep at all, but her footing slipped and she fell to the floor in a heap. The handlink skittled off under the console. Exhausted and afraid, she ran out of the Control Room and into the hallways. Once in more familiar territory, she ran like bloody hell toward help, toward anyone who would listen and believe her.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Al calmed down and returned to that unknown state, inanimate again. Beth, Donna and Sam sat around his bed hoping to calm him should his fears return. His wife said, "He's never had flashbacks like that before."

Sam still held the Admiral's hand. "Are you sure it was a flashback? I mean he was calling for Allie. That wouldn't be part of a flashback, Beth. Would it?"

Her face tensed up, "What are you talking about? He didn't call for Allie."

His gut tightened and he shrugged off the comment, hoping no one would pursue his own apparent madness. He wanted to divert attention, so he asked, "Did he ever tell you what they did to him there?"

Some memories of Al's were not to be shared and what they did to him was number one on that list. Al didn't want Beth to know and his own way of handling pain was to file it away under lock and key, so words never were put to the atrocities. "When he had nightmares, sometimes he'd talk in his sleep and I could find out things, but he can't talk about what they did to him." Beth looked at Donna, "Yes, I know what that sounds like and after this last episode, I'm not sure anymore. This was like a flashback, but the worst he ever went through."

Donna reflected, "I didn't mean to hurt you, Beth. Sometimes it's hard when you're married to the most almost perfect man in the universe. I should know!" It was an attempt to lighten the mood, but the gravity of Al's situation weighed too heavily.

"A lot of the boys I saw in the '70s were in trouble because of PTSS, but this is beyond anything I've ever seen."

No one spoke. The monitors beeped and whirred. The enormity of Al's circumstance was trying its best to sink into their heads, but they had no understanding at all. A mind as powerful as Al's, if it was twisted into profound psychosis, would be hard to unlock, especially if he fought the help he desperately needed.

Sam broke the silence. "Beth, I don't know if his body can tolerate much more." Sam pointed out black and blue marks on Al's arms. "This is taking a toll on him. Look at the bruises."

Beth tenderly pulled back the sheet covering Al's legs and checked to see if there were more and she found large patches of discolored skin. "Why didn't I see these before?" An angry red, blue and purple mark covered Al's left calf. "This is from his own muscles cramping up. I've heard of this happening, but I've never seen it."

No one could sustain this agony for long, but Sam realized Al would be sustaining it for a very long time. Shaking that thought from his mind, he said, "I think Dr. Langford needs to give Al a complete physical before we transfer him back to the project."

The morning's tumult gave Beth second thoughts. "I don't know if we can do this at home."

The exhaustion in Beth's eyes was easy to see. Donna could see that the prospect of living with Al in this condition was sinking in. She offered, "Beth, we can all help out. I don't like the idea of Al in a nursing home. They won't pay the right kind of attention to him."

She was his wife, but she was also the mother of his children. "At home, Allie will have to deal with this and I know my child. She is Daddy's girl. This could devastate her."

Sam had to intervene, "I think it already is devastating her. She wants to be with him and we haven't really let her come much." Quietly, almost to himself he said, "I think Al misses her."

"She has to concentrate on school. If I let that drop, Al will have my head. Allie's the brightest of all the girls. Gia, Toni and Peri all know it, but not Allie. Kind of funny, don't you think? Al doesn't want her to know, yet." She found a smile, something she didn't think she still had. "Sam, he told me your folks never let you know how smart you were and that worked out really well for you."

The compliment warmed Sam. "That's nice of him to say."

"Al is so good, but the one thing he always doubted was his ability to parent and I think that's what he does best." Thinking about Al and her youngest child made her continue on. "Allie is so much his kid, it's scary. She has his intelligence and his imagination, incredible imagination. Sometimes, when I hear her tell her ideas to Al, I can't figure out what her thought processes must be like, but he always understands her. This is killing to her. If anything more happens to her father, I don't know if she could handle it."

Pragmatist Donna brought everyone back on track. "I know this is important for you to talk about, but we need to make plans to bring him home."

"If they're going to give him electroshock, then we aren't bringing him home, yet. He'll be transferred to a psych hospital for treatment." As Beth said the words, she shook with a chill.

Sam still didn't like the idea. "I know I don't remember much from my leaps, but I know what electroshock is like. Don't do that to his brain. You have no idea how much it hurts."

Donna took his hand. "Sweetheart, what happened to you happened over 40 years ago. It's a lot different now. If he needs the electroshock to bring him back, then we owe it to him to allow Dr. Ballard to try."

"It's too radical a treatment. Please, don't do it. Let's get him home. We need to give him a chance to come back on his own."

Trying to keep up with Sam's changing attitudes was frustrating Donna. "You're the one who just said we have to do something soon."

He stared into her eyes with a coldness she never saw before. "You can't give him electroshock. It will kill him."

"How can you know that?"

"Because I know." Stammering was all he could do. "I just know." The recollection was forming more solidly. "If he hadn't been there for me, I would have died."

Donna had to get through to him. "That's right, Sam and how did he make sure you made it? Do you remember that part?" He wanted to forget it, but he understood what she was saying. "I can tell you remember, Sam. He forced you to take an electroshock treatment and it saved your life."

"This is not the same thing, Donna. I had to do that because of the first treatment. If I hadn't had that one, the second wouldn't have been necessary."

Debate stopped when a nurse entered. "Excuse me, Mrs. Calavicci, but there's a phone call for you. It's your daughter Gia. She said it's important." Beth followed her out.

Alone with Al, Donna had to talk to Sam. "Listen, I can't begin to know how you feel about the Havenwell incident, but Al needs help. Sam, this is insanity at its worst and ugliest. Al has managed to survive so far, but he's only human. He's lived through so much hell. You should have been here when you were able to convince Beth to wait for Al back in 1970. They had a hard time. Al remembered the life he had without her, but Beth didn't. None of us did. Only Al has lived all the timelines. He needed some heavy-duty time with Verbena, but he wouldn't do it because he thought he might jeopardize you and the Project." For the first time in days, he was really listening to her. "You have to realize that his end of this deal was pretty awful. He remembers everything and because of that, he's lived his life hundreds of times. I'm completely amazed that he's done this well so far."

"And now he's crazy." Saying the words made him shudder.

"Not crazy, Sam. He has a mental illness, no different than pneumonia or cancer."

A moment of thought made Sam say, "It is a cancer, isn't it."

Donna had no answer to his question and even if she did, she didn't want to answer him. They sat diligently keeping watch over their friend.

Beth came back in, distraught and anxious. "Gia called. She said Allie is saying some very strange things. Things about Ziggy putting her in the Imaging Chamber and centering her on Al. Sam, I think I need your help on this. Would you come back to the Project with me?" They left Donna to watch over the ailing Admiral and drove back to Stallion's Gate as fast as they could.


	5. You Got to Believe Me

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter Five - You Got to Believe Me****  
**

Sam and Beth arrived at the Calavicci home to find Allie sitting petulantly in her father's overstuffed chair, arms folded across her chest and anger flaring her nostrils. Gia filled them in on Allie's story and how adamant the teen was. Sam got to her eye level and said, "Allie, what you're saying is impossible."

In a teenage snit she said, "So is leaping." Calming herself a little she asked, "Uncle Sam, why would I make this up?"

Beth answered for him, "Baby, we all want Daddy to get better. I think maybe you're just dreaming a little more imaginatively than the rest of us."

Her father's anger roared inside her, "Damn it, I am not!"

"Allegra, no language. Do you understand?"

In defiance, she didn't say a word. Sam wanted to keep tempers from getting out of hand and he had an easy solution to the problem. "Let's just ask Ziggy what happened today? Okay, Allie? She'll confirm your observation. Show us what you did."

Still refusing to speak, Allie got up and walked stoically toward the Control Room. Sam and Beth followed. When they got there, Allie put her hand on the sensor, but nothing happened. "Come on, Ziggy. You let me in before."

The door stayed shut and Ziggy remained quiet until Sam placed his hand on the sensor. They entered and Allie tried again, "Okay, Ziggy. You have to tell them what happened this afternoon. They don't believe me." There was nothing.

Sam asked, "Ziggy, was Allie in the Control Room today?"

It took several seconds for the computer to answer and then the voice was formal and almost too polite. "No, Dr. Beckett. Allegra Calavicci has never been inside the Control Room until now. She does not have proper clearance and you should know better."

Allie flew right off the handle, "You damn bucket of bolts! You tell them the truth! Daddy was in Vietnam. I saw him there. He was hurt and there were these ants crawling on him. You told me to go in the Imaging Chamber! You told me to!"

"Miss Calavicci, I could not have done that. You have no clearance for such activity and with the alterations to my data banks, it is impossible for anyone to observe at all."

Steam spewed from her livid gaze. "Why are you lying? Daddy's being held prisoner!"

Beth put her arm around her baby. "Sweetie, don't. . ."

The teen broke away from the embrace and interrupted, "Mom, you don't understand. I saw Daddy when he was a POW. He told me to come back here and tell Uncle Sam that he was being held by Lobo, no, Lothos and Zoë."

The names startled Sam. He snapped in a sharp and almost vicious voice. "Where did you hear those names?"

Her uncle never used that tone with her. She didn't think he ever used it at all. Her eyes looked down and she held back tears. Why wouldn't he believe her? "Daddy told me. He said Lothos and Zoë had him and that they wouldn't let him die. Part of Daddy is back at the hospital, but," she pointed to the Imaging Chamber, "Another part of him is somewhere in there! Please Uncle Sam, you have to believe me."

He didn't have to believe anything. Mostly, he didn't want to believe it, but again, he felt a tug, as if some part of him was validating Allie's indictments of Lothos and Zoë. His gut tightened and he wanted to vomit, but that had to wait. "Beth, take Allie home."

Often enough she'd seen that look on her husband's face, that look of resolve, that look that meant no one and nothing was going to get in the way of figuring out a solution to whatever the problem was. This time, that look fueled her worst fears. "Why?"

The work he needed to do needed to be done alone. The words sounded flat, no emotion, no indication of what his brain was cogitating. "Just go home."

Allie knew she made some headway with Sam. "You believe me now, don't you?"

"I'll come by later and tell you what I've found." The Calavicci women left Sam to investigate Allegra's allegations. Alone with the computer, Sam started in with the work ahead of him. He didn't want to believe Allie, but he knew she was telling the truth. Lothos and Zoë were involved, but knowing that didn't make the situation easier. They might be using Allie. They might have infected Ziggy with a virus that made the mega-computer lie and create false leads. In any scenario he could come up with one thing was certain - the cruelest of the cruel were toying with the mind and body of one Admiral Albert Calavicci and that he knew from instinct or madness. So far, he wasn't sure which.

Sam sat down at Gooshie's work station, cursed himself for letting Gooshie go back to teaching at Georgetown, and flipped on the screen that hadn't been on in months. Ziggy whirred a little, which surprised the scientist. Ziggy shouldn't be making any noise at all. "What's going on, Ziggy? Something tells me Allie isn't completely off base here."

"I'm afraid I have nothing to tell you, Dr. Beckett. Miss Calavicci is hallucinating; contriving stories to explain her father's situation."

"Well, you don't mind if I do a little digging on my own, do you?"

"What if I did? I don't find your meddling into my matrix amusing at all. You have dissected every corner of me and it really must stop."

Something was wrong, very wrong with Ziggy. Over-reacting wasn't one of her traits. If anything, the computer tended to underplay situations. Sam felt as if Ziggy had a secret and he had to discover what it was.

Four hours later, he decided to take a break. He discovered what he already knew, that all the needed programmatic elements for leaping were offline. Problem was he discovered something new was online, a security program Ziggy designed on her own and put in place without notification. There was still no hard evidence that Allie's story was truth, but the new security system was a puzzle. He didn't want to believe Allie, but a disturbing virus infected Ziggy and Lothos and Zoë couldn't be excluded and that troubled him, a lot.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

The variety of pain and suffering Al Calavicci went through in his life would kill the normal person, but he wasn't normal. His power to overcome life's torments was beyond human. He could be beaten up, but he never allowed himself to be beaten. The physical pain Lothos and Zoë were throwing at him made every nerve raw. The slightest movement brought with it waves of burning misery, but he knew they would not let him die, so he fought the desire to give in. Standing up made his legs throw shudders of stabbing pain through his body, but the room they dumped him into needed investigating.

He chanted a soft mantra in his head, "Nothing hurts, nothing hurts, nothing hurts." In truth, every fiber in his being screamed at him to remain still, but too much was at stake especially since Allie got involved. He had to be sure Lothos and Zoë did not get their hands on his child. They must not have seen her, but he couldn't figure that one out. They would have jumped on the opportunity to torment him with his baby's pain. He had no doubt of that.

Vietnam had phased out and all the other hells were gone. He was back at the beginning. The walls were sleek and to his glazed eyes, appeared seamless, but that couldn't be the case. Zoë entered at will. If there was a way in, then he should be able to find some way of getting out. The problem of what was on the outside would be confronted when and if he found himself there.

Each step sent shocks up his legs. Pressing his hands against the wall felt like sticking them into raging fires. He wasn't sure he would feel anything other than the pain, but he had to try. Escape always was the first thing on his mind. Every day in Vietnam, he planned a way out, even executed the plans three times. His memory brought to his attention each failed try and the repercussions that carved more scars into his body.

The entrance was found only by noting an intense increase in pain as he glided his fingers over a particular section of wall. Further investigation found a sensor of some kind, his way out. Pressing his hand against the sensor, he heard the whir of a motor, but nothing moved. He pushed again and the noise started in louder. A third push and a panel slid to the side, but from his perspective, a little too easily.

He wasn't going to get anywhere by being too cautious. There was no other decision to make. His right foot stepped outside his pristine cell, then the left foot and magically, the pain inundating his body disappeared. He was free from the burning, the tearing, the aching, the flaying. Breathing in air wasn't a struggle, but it was all too immediate and easy. Easy was a nice change of pace though and he had to take a chance.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

After dinner that night, Allegra sat in the living room with her mother and sisters. Gia and Toni tried to find some kind of normalcy for them to rally around, but it wasn't working. Peri sat to the side, unable to understand anything more than her father was a dead man walking. No explanations - potential or real - mattered when it came to the bottom line. Her father was gone and she felt helpless to do anything about it.

Perseverating on her experience, Allie wouldn't entertain any notion that she was imagining things. "Why do you thing I'm crazy?"

Toni sat down next to Allie on the couch. "Because you're a Calavicci. We're all nuts. Some of us are just better at hiding it." Her smile made Allie smile a little too. "Ah hah! I knew there was one left in you."

"I wish you'd believe me. It was so horrible to see him like that. Mama, I never dreamed it was that bad. Did things like that really happen to him?"

Beth sat in her chair by the fireplace. "We'll never really know what happened to your father there. He refuses to talk about it."

She slipped onto the floor at her mother's feet and laid her head on Beth's lap. "He kept spitting ants out of his mouth. They were all over him. These red biting ants crawled on his eyes and . . ."

"Stop it!" Peri had heard enough. "Just stop it, Allie. Dad is in the hospital in Albuquerque, mentally ill and probably never going to get any better. Just face the truth and forget this 'Ziggy centered me on Dad' stuff. You're old enough to start acting like an adult."

Appalled at Peri's outburst, Beth quietly, but with intense motherly power said, "I think you should start acting like an adult."

The silence thickened until Gia said, "I'm going to call home and see how Paolo and the kids are doing." She left the room.

A few more moments of stillness passed. Toni stood up and stretched out her arms and legs. "I think I'm going to go for a run. I'll be back later."

Then there were three. Beth simply got up and left the two youngest alone. They knew it was a contrived situation. The others left on purpose to give them time to work out whatever was going on. Allie began, "I'm sorry, Peri, but what I'm saying is true. I saw Dad."

Peri just didn't want to hear it again, but the only way to stop Allie's chatter was to convince her she was wrong. She took here sister's hand and said, "Let's go for a walk, okay?"

They left the apartment and walked along the corridors of Project Quantum Leap, the exceedingly unusual place they both grew up in. Peri gently asked, "It's been a few days since you've seen Dad, hasn't it?"

Referring to her vision of the Admiral in the Imaging Chamber, she told Peri, "I saw him this afternoon."

The singer was weary of the entire situation and she sighed, "I mean in Albuquerque."

"Mom let me go last Wednesday night."

She held her sister's hand even tighter. "I'm going to say some stuff out loud here that we all know, but none of us want to say. Before I get started though, I have to make sure you know I love you very much and I love Mom and Dad and I know they love me. Okay?" They continued walking down past the living quarters toward the business end of the project. "We all have special relationships with Mom and Dad, but Allie, you and Dad have something unique that the rest of us don't." Allie started to disagree. Peri stopped her. "It's okay. I love him so much and I know he loves me, Gia and Toni just as much as he loves you, but you and Dad are exactly alike."

"That's what Ziggy said. She said our genetic material was almost identical."

Peri wasn't getting through to her sister. "Sometimes when you love someone as much as you love Dad, you start to believe things that really can't be true. I know how much you want to help him, but what you're saying is impossible."

"Do you believe Dad and Uncle Sam went back and changed people's lives?"

Peri's talent was music. The science of time travel and the mathematics of computer design were things she believed were important, but she had no interest in them. She looked at Quantum Leap with a skeptic's eye and though she never doubted her father or her Uncle Sam, a part of her could never quite buy the premise. "I think they believe that's what they did, but how do people travel through time?"

"You think all those scientists are wrong? Daddy and Uncle Sam are going to get the Nobel Prize for Physics."

"You really believe in this stuff, don't you?"

"Yes." She spoke with great affirmation.

"Well, I wish I did."

They were close to the Control Room door. Allie walked over to the panel that betrayed her earlier. "Ziggy told me to come in and that's when we found Daddy." The picture of her bleeding father covered in biting ants haunted her and tears began to fall in silent streams.

Peri walked to her and held the frightened teenager. "This has to be so hard for you."

"It's not fair. No one believes me just because I'm 16. Ziggy said I was biologically closer to Daddy than anyone else. Uncle Sam could check that. I'm not lying, Peri. I'm not."

"I know, baby."

"Only Daddy gets to call me 'baby.'" Allie walked toward the Control Room door and placed her hand on the sensor. After the earlier experience with her mom and her Uncle Sam she expected nothing, so when the door opened she stepped back, bumping into her sister. "See, Peri. I told you. I told you Ziggy let me in."

Peri didn't want to believe what she was seeing. "It doesn't make sense."

"Maybe you'll see Daddy, too."

Together, hand in hand, the sisters entered the sacrosanct chamber and held their breath waiting for some words from Ziggy. Nothing sounded out. They didn't let go of each other as they moved slowly around the room. Peri broke their silence. "It doesn't look like I expected it to."

From all around came the question, "What did you expect, Perigrina?"

"Who was that?"

Allie knew. "Don't you recognize her voice? It's Ziggy." She dropped her sister's hand and talked to the orb above them. "Why did you tell my Mom and Uncle Sam I wasn't here before? They think I'm crazy."

"I couldn't tell them, Allegra. Dr. Beckett and your mother, while well-intentioned, will only get in the way."

Peri was getting nervous. "Why did you let me in here?"

"You are also necessary, Perigrina. It's through you that we'll retrieve your father. It's through Allegra that we can communicate with him."

In unison the girls said, "I don't understand."

"You don't have to. Simply trust me. You must trust me completely."

Allie, with a grin a mile wide on her face, answered, "Of course, I trust you." She looked at Peri, "What about you? You trust Ziggy, don't you?"

The musician didn't know what to think. This was totally beyond her ken. "I guess."

"Allegra, get the handlink. It's on the floor where you heaved it earlier. We need to make contact with your father again."

The young woman visually scoured the room, saw the blinking unit and picked up the handlink. She walked toward the Imaging Chamber entrance. Peri slowly followed behind. "Can I come with you?"

"I don't know. Can she, Ziggy?"

"You must both go. However, in order for Perigrina to see your father and your father to see her, there must be skin to skin physical contact between you. Allegra, you'll have to hold Perigrina's hand. Skin to skin contact is vital."

"Let's go, Peri." The sisters made their way into the Imaging Chamber. Allie was anxious as a Derby winner at the gate. Peri, on the other hand, was balking a little. "You coming or not?"

"Alright. Alright. I'll be there. I'm just sort of nervous." Gathering up whatever courage she could, she marched ahead of Allie and walked in. "What do I do?"

Allie pointed to the silver disk. "I have to stand on that thing and I guess you hold my hand. Is that it, Ziggy?"

"That's right. Perigrina doesn't have to be on the disk, just you."

Peri didn't know if should be afraid or excited, but she did know that she hated being called Perigrina, but other things seemed more important. She asked, "How long will it take?"

Remembering how her stomach overturned a few times Allie asked, "Is this going to be like the first time?"

"Possibly."

Peri didn't like the sound of the exchange. "Why? What happened the first time?"

"I threw up, but it will be okay." She took her place and announced, "Ziggy, center me on Dad."


	6. A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author. 

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter Six - A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste**

Al walked along a steel and fluorescent-lit corridor. Looking behind him, he saw nothing. The door he came through was gone and he knew he was inside another of Lothos' pain producing escapades, but for a change, this one didn't hurt. Touching the sleek wall did nothing, no sharp knives in his brain, no cold so intense he lost all sense of his limbs, no fire eating his flesh. It was a world of nothingness. He kept walking toward the far wall, the wall that never seemed to get any closer. Picking up speed a little, he tried to find a way to get to his goal, but it wasn't happening. Part of him wanted to return to the "safety" of the room he escaped, but safe wasn't his way. The far wall moved farther down and he reached out to the walls at his side. Those walls were closing in and now he could touch both sides with his outstretched arms. Behind him the corridor's end faded into a nothing horizon. Turning to face ahead, his original goal also vanished into a tiny gray dot of space too far away to contemplate.

He stopped moving in order to better work through his plan of attack. Deciding he needed to hear sound, he talked aloud. "Okay. You're not going to make it back to where you came from and there's no way to get to where you were going so what are you going to do?" Surveying his options for movement didn't help much. The walls were in the same place whether he moved forward or backward. A small spot seemed to be in front of his eyes, but always at the farthest distance. At his age, floaters in his field of vision weren't uncommon. He dismissed the mysterious gray blob as an annoyance. "So, there's nothing for you to do." His fingers ran through his hair in a move so habitual, it always provoked smiles from friends and family. "Options, Calavicci. Figure out the options." A pacing step began. Moving about ten feet forward, he turned and walked ten feet back. Over and over, he repeated the pace. "Okay, keep walking in one way or the other."

The sense of being trapped was growing inside him. Trapped and knowing nothing he did would change things, nothing at all. The pacing was maintained. "Keep moving. You have to stay strong. Don't let the mind games get to you. They're worse than the pain." But the mind games were getting to him. His breathing became irregular. There wasn't a way out of this long corridor. "Keep moving. Go toward something, stupid. It doesn't matter if you never reach it. Just move somewhere." Looking in front and in back, he didn't remember where he came from and what he was walking toward. "Damn, you got turned around. Retrace your steps. Just stop and think. Retrace your steps." It was an impossible task and his frustration grew. Breathing got even harder, but the pressure inside his lungs was self-generated. "They're getting to you, Calavicci. Don't let it happen. Just relax."

He stopped walking and concentrated on taking in air and physically relaxing his tense body. "You're being stupid here. You can't let them win." Knowing how to pick battles finally came back to him. "They like watching you twitch in here like a rat sniffing for cheese in a maze. Sit down and let them make the next move." With that, he lowered himself to the floor, leaned his back against the side wall and calmly returned to a state of control, but not exactly control. Consciousness faded and where he was didn't matter any more.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Sam and Donna sat in their living room watching a movie. Donna loved sappy, sentimental movies and she had to download **_Sleepless in Seattle. _**It was perfect for the kind of evening they needed. The movie gave them permission to sit and cuddle in each other's arms, if only for a few hours. They curled up on the couch and stared at the screen.

Donna watched Tom Hanks and saw Al. It was the same curly hair and sideways smile. She remembered when the Calaviccis had their 35th wedding anniversary. Sam was still leaping, but a small group went to a quiet little restaurant to celebrate the marriage that survived hell and achieved heaven. Al still lusted after Beth in a pure sense, if that was possible, and Donna recalled her jealousy. She wouldn't deny either their strong love, but with Sam still leaping she could only wish she shared the same with her husband.

Meg Ryan reminded Sam of Beth. Her face held sweetness and strength and her mind was her own. Sam knew that he was, in some way, responsible for the Calavicci marriage working out and he enjoyed that, but he also knew he was responsible for Al suffering five more years in Vietnam and Beth living with fear for those years. Somehow, just as Meg knew she was destined for Tom, Sam knew Beth and Al would always be together. It was the wrong he was most happy he put right.

Thoughts of their friends filled their minds and the thoughts started Donna's tears. Sam wiped them gently away. "You love this movie, don't you?"

She didn't want to tell him the truth and only nodded in agreement. "I guess."

Her half-hearted response was a red flag to Sam, but he wasn't able to talk about it either. Better left unsaid, he turned back to the movie and lost himself in his thoughts, just like Donna.

Meg finally met Tom on the top of the Empire State Building and the credits began to roll. Neither Beckett moved until blue lit up the screen. Sam locked down at Donna. "You awake?"

"Yes."

"Did you watch the movie?"

"Sort of."

"Yeah, me too. This is getting more complicated, Donna."

"You talking about Al?"

"Yeah." He pushed himself up off the couch. "I can't help but think Allie may have something."

"Don't do that to yourself or to Beth."

"Do what?" He looked back at Donna. "We don't know what's wrong and every possibility has to be investigated. Just because I stopped leaping doesn't mean Zoë and Lothos have stopped."

"But why would Ziggy involve Allie and not tell you what's going on? That makes no sense."

"I know, but neither does Al being so incredibly psychotic that he's doing all this to himself." Donna's insistence that Al was mentally ill was starting to exasperate him. "Whether he's psychotic or not, something is up with Ziggy. She's running are odd programs I've never seen before. Nothing except her knowing those names points to Allie being right, but something is going on."

Donna looked at her watch. "I don't know and I'm about ready to give up." There was a terrible thought on her mind and she had to give it a voice before it burst inside her "Sam, please don't take this the wrong way, but a part of me wishes Al would die." She continued quickly trying to explain before Sam exploded in anger. "See, if he's this psychologically disturbed, then I don't think he can get better, so why prolong his and Beth's agony. If it is medical, then no one knows what to do and he's going to die anyhow. If Allie is right and some Evil Leaper has him, then he must be going through hell and it might be easier for him to just be dead." There was silence and Donna felt the need to fill it until Sam said something. "I know it sounds terrible, but if those are the alternatives, then maybe death is the best option."

Sam turned off the television. "I feel the same way."

It was a good thing Donna was sitting because she never expected to hear her husband admit to the statements she made. "Excuse me?"

He came back to her and sat. **"**Wait, I don't want him to die, but if I thought he was a dead man no matter what we did, then yes, it would be kinder to help him die than keeping him alive**." **

"Sam, I am so surprised to hear you agree."

"It's too hard to watch him in such pain, but I won't give up on him, Donna. He would never give up on me and he's proved that time and time again." The physicist tapped paced back and forth. "I just feel like he wants me to keep going." His brain made him dizzy with thoughts that conflicted. "He's still protecting me, Donna. I don't know how, but he's protecting me. It's like when we traded places during that leap into Crown Point. I got some of his neurons and mesons and I felt his thoughts and he felt mine. I know he needs me and he's still alive somewhere. He's lost out there and I'm feeling just as lost. It's getting close to unbearable." Donna started saying something, but the physicist didn't hear her words and if he had, he wouldn't have paid any attention to them. "I'm going to the lab. I have to investigate Ziggy more."

"Tonight? It's late, Sam."

The itch under his skin just wouldn't go away. "I can't sleep. I have to find out."

"Find out what?"

With a sobriety and darkness in his speech Donna never heard before he said, "Find out where Al's being held prisoner."

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Beth looked for her girls, but couldn't find either Allie or Peri. It had been well over two hours since they left. She put her hand to the communication console. "Ziggy, locate Allie and Peri Calavicci." There was no response. "Ziggy, where are they?" Still no sound. "Hell, where are you?" When she still had no answer, Beth felt a chill. "Something's wrong."

Toni, wrapped in her father's terry cloth robe stepped from the shower. The distress in her mother's face was obvious. "Mom? What's up? Is dad okay?"

"I don't know where Allie and Peri are and Ziggy won't answer me."

"I'm sure it's nothing, but let me get dressed and we'll figure this out." With a compassionate smile, she walked toward her old bedroom quite positive that nothing was really wrong and that her mother, once again, was over-reacting. Then she stopped in her tracks. Her mother never over-reacted. Toni found her twin reading a John Irving novel. "Gia, Mom is worried about Allie and Peri. They haven't come home yet."

"Knowing those two, they're off somewhere on Dad's motorcycles. How did our parents end up with you and me and then those two?"

"Boggles the mind, but let's go look for them. Mom is worried and she doesn't need anything else going wrong." Toni walked out leaving Gia to pack away her book and put on some shoes.

They met out in the living room. Beth was on edge. She didn't need this added aggravation from her two youngest daughters who were old enough to know better. "Where do you think they could have gone?"

Gia started with, "Did you try the garage? I wouldn't put it past them to take a couple of dad's motorcycles out."

"I called there. The bikes, the car and the plane are still there."

"The plane?" Gia was surprised. "You actually thought they'd take the plane?"

Her twin shook her head and had to admit, "With all the things Allie's been saying, I'd put nothing past her. When Dad got focused on something, he didn't care what rules he broke. Allie is just like him."

Gia asked her mother, "Did you call Uncle Sam?" It was a place Gia herself had run to on the few occasions she got into hot water at home.

Beth picked at her trimmed fingernails. "Not yet. It's late and I don't want to bother them if I don't have to."

Toni grabbed the phone and dialed. "I'm sure they won't mind."

Donna picked up the ringing receiver. "Aunt Donna, this is Toni. Have you seen Allie or Peri? They took a walk about two hours ago and haven't come back yet."

A chill of fear shot through Donna. "No, but maybe Sam has. He's in the lab working on Allie's idea." Mother's instinct made her ask, "Is Beth okay?"

Smiling to keep Beth from realizing what Donna asked, Toni answered, "Pretty good. A little jumpy, maybe."

"I'll be right there," and the phone returned to its cradle. Taking baby John from his crib, Donna left her apartment for the Calavicci rooms.

Toni turned to Gia and Beth. "Donna is coming by. She hasn't seen the girls. Uncle Sam is in the lab. Gia, we'll go him first. Maybe he can help."There was increasing anxiety in her mother's eyes. "Mom, you want us to wait until Aunt Donna gets here?"

She shook her head. "Just find them."

Gia and Toni left the rooms and made their way through the complex looking for their sisters. They found Sam in the lab playing a computer game of Free Cell and losing. Gia broke his concentration, "Having fun?'

Startled at the voice, Sam nearly fell off his chair. "This helps me think."

The twins looked at each other and laughed. Gia recovered enough to say, "Dad used to say the same thing about pinball."

"Yeah, I could never beat him at that. Made me crazy. That and speed chess. He always had me." He walked to his visitors. "What can I do for you?"

Toni tried to be casual, "Looks like we have two missing Calaviccis. Mom sent us to find them. Have you seen Allie and Peri?"

"Not since this afternoon."

In unison they admitted, "Mom is worried."

Sam walked to his computer and accessed the voice command. "Ziggy, locate Allegra and Peregrina Calavicci." There was no answer from the computer that knew all. "Ziggy, you there?" The lack of a response made three heartbeats increase a little. "Ziggy, come on. We have to find them. Where are they?"

Finally Ziggy answered, "Unable to locate at this time."

Gia and Toni exchanged glances. Sam avoided their eyes. "Why?"

"Unable to disclose that information at this time."

His voice grew in volume and anger, "Why?"

Gia voiced her and Toni's fear, "Uncle Sam, what is going on here?"

"I don't know, Gia, but I think we'd better take a look at the Imaging Chamber."

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Thames and Zoë faced off, each angered with the other. Zoë started in, "I don't care how bright you think he is, the Admiral is nothing more than just an annoyance."

"Zoë, babe, don't underestimate the little weasel. He and Beckett created this technology. He knows exactly what to do."

No one had the right to dismiss her skills. She enjoyed slowly killing her prey. "But the 'little weasel' won't have any chance to do it. He can't escape. He's barely breathing as it is. I could kill him in a second."

"Then do it. Lothos doesn't care anymore. He's had enough fun. We don't have to worry about Beckett, so let's get rid of this one."

Zoë knew how to get to her partner. With as much sarcasm as she could muster she said, "You jealous of his wardrobe, darling?"

Thames sported striped harem pants, a bright pink pirate shirt and gold shoes. "Me, girl? Not a chance in hell."

"Well, you should know."

The inference to Thames' origin wasn't lost. "I know what hell is and, honey, if you want to get there sooner than you think you should, just let Calavicci get away. Lothos will not be happy. I know you want the Admiral alive and suffering every indignity you can design in that twisted brain of yours, but remember, what Lothos wants, Lothos gets!"

Zoë wouldn't let Thames see her squirm, but she knew this time he spoke the truth. Lothos could make her life miserable and even dispose of her as he did Alia, the last woman he had leaping around fulfilling his evil plans. Even Zoë felt a bit of compassion toward poor Alia. No one should die like that, except maybe Admiral Calavicci. Her perverted imagination began to grin. "Indeed, Thames, Lothos will get what he wants." Waving her hand at Thames she said, "Now, go away. I have things to which I must attend."

Thames walked out the door shaking his rattled head and mumbling to himself. Zoë watched and when he was gone, she made her way to the panel that allowed her access to the Admiral. Slipping in through the sliding door she found Al sitting against the wall, his head resting limply on his chest, eyes closed and weary beyond belief. "Oh, Admiral, you look positively terrible. Aren't you feeling well?"

Without even trying to move he said, "Good to see you, babe. How the hell have you been?'

His attitude irritated her. She wanted him groveling and begging for mercy, but he wouldn't give in to her wants and that made her angry. However, she couldn't let him know he was getting to her, so she wandered about casually. "I'm wonderfully fine, Admiral. Never felt better."

"Doesn't that just make my day?"

"You look awful, absolutely appalling. Aren't the accommodations to your liking?"

His patience wasn't that great to begin with and it was getting shorter by the second. "Listen, just do whatever, all right? I can't stop you and we both know it."

"The great Admiral Albert Calavicci succumbs. I had more confidence in your assiduity."

"To tell you the truth, at one time, so did I, but there's no more reason to fight. I've fought all my life and I'm done. It's over. Disappointed?"

Zoë needed a moment to think about an answer. "In all honesty, Admiral, yes, I am. I was looking forward to a long, fascinating encounter with you. You are legendary, you know."

"A legend in my own mind," he laughed. "Listen, if you let me go home, I can regroup a little and be a better challenge for you. How about it?"

"A most feeble attempt at winning your freedom."

"Well, right now, I'm feeling pretty feeble." He tried to gather some strength. He inhaled as deeply as he could. "So, let's see, you've sent me back to Vietnam to relive some very special moments, had me beaten, set on fire, frozen, no food for how many weeks now, no water, played wonderful mind games. The endless hallway thing was inspired. What's left?"

Circling the room with marked precision, she asked, "You think there's no more torment for you? I truly am disappointed. You have no faith in my creativity."

With a great deal more effort than he wanted to admit to, Al got to his feet fighting off the waves of nausea turning his stomach into Jell-o. "Whatever you have planned, just do it. I'm in no mood for games."

"Neither am I."


	7. Or Die Trying

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter Seven - Or Die Trying  
**

The images around Allie came to rest. She closed her eyes and shook her head in order to stave the whirling pictures. "Peri, Ziggy did it. Dad's here somewhere."

From her perspective, she and Allie were still in the silver and white room. "You sure? It looks the same to me."

Allie surveyed the new surroundings. "This is different. Can't you see it?"

Peri wasn't in contact with her sister and so, she saw no difference. "Allie, we're still in the Imaging Chamber."

"Take my hand, Peri, and you'll see! Daddy is here. We have to find him."

The singer approached the silver disk and took her sister's hand. In an instant, she finally understood what Allie had been talking about. She was transported to Oz and meeting a horse of a different color. "This is too weird. Where are we?"

They stood in a small room with a multitude of doors leading to wherever. "I don't know where we are, but Dad is here." She looked at the handlink. "Ziggy, can you find him?"

The handlink whistled and whirred and instructed Allie to go to her right. Peri still couldn't figure out why she was walking somewhere when she was in this empty room and there was nowhere interesting to walk. "Allie, what's happening?"

She didn't answer, but kept walking toward where Ziggy pointed. The room was clean and white with doors leading into unseen rooms. Allie passed by them all until reaching one on the far side of the room. The door was still closed, but Allie knew they could walk through it without a problem. "Follow me. We can walk through things."

"How?"

As if Peri was the most stupid person on earth, Allie clicked her tongue and said, "Because you're a hologram. Come on."

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Back in the apartment, Donna brought in two cups of tea and sat next to Beth on the couch. "John is sleeping in your room. He'll be fine." She handed Beth the steaming mug, "You, on the other hand, look terrible."

"It's how I feel." She was looking deep into her soul. "Donna, why is this so hard for me? Al's been lost before. Why does this one hurt so bad?"

"This time, Beth, it's his mind that's lost." The look on her friend's face decimated her. She never saw loneliness personified with quite this passion. She tried to assuage Beth's anguish by telling her the truth as she saw it. "In the past, Al always had his incredible brain to see him through. Now it's not quite there."

There was something inherently wrong with that idea. "I still don't believe he's mentally ill. I'm having a hard time with that." She laughed at her own prejudice. "It's idiotic, but I wish he had cancer or heart disease rather than mental illness. Before this, I was so very politically correct about mental illness. Now I find out I'm as stupidly bigoted as everyone else. I know that's wrong of me. Mental illness is a disease, but I always thought a man like Al was immune to things like that especially since he came home from Vietnam pretty much okay. His body was just a wreck, but his mind, even with the terrible dreams, his mind was as quick as it ever had been. I figured he could survive anything if he survived that." Then in a complete change of thought, she wondered, "And where are my girls?"

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Sam, Gia, and Toni entered the Control Room. The hum of the vents told Sam exactly where Allie and Peri were. "Damn it. Ziggy, are the girls in the Imaging Chamber?" He knew they were, but verification seemed necessary.

"Dr Beckett, you know they are."

"Why did you let them go in there?"

"You don't understand. They're the only ones who can contact and retrieve Admiral Calavicci."

Gia inherited her father's patience. "What the hell do you mean? You know where Dad is."

"Ms. Calavicci-Benedetti, you think you know where your father is, but only his corporeal being is there. The Admiral is being held by Lothos."

"So you choose now to finally tell us?" Sam was furious and wanted to hit something. "What the hell is wrong with you? Do you have any idea what this has been like for us, especially Al?"

"I'm sorry. Dr. Beckett, but it's been impossible until now to get the Admiral back. A great many variables had to come together."

Toni didn't know what to ask first. "Uncle Sam, what is going on?"

"I don't know yet." He didn't know what to do. "Listen, I'm sorry, but I have to figure this out. You go on home and stay with your mom."

Ziggy interrupted him, "There's no need for you to figure anything, Dr. Beckett. It's exactly as Allie told you. Lothos and Zoë have the Admiral and now Allie and Peri are going to get him back."

Sam wanted to know, "What does Peri have to do with it. I thought Allie was the one Observing."

"Dr. Beckett, if you want to help, you'll take Gia and Toni back home so they can be with Mrs. Calavicci. The Admiral doesn't need you."

Sam took control. "You two go back to the apartment. I'll stay here and get Allie and Peri. Tell your mom we know where they are and that they're okay. Nothing can happen to them in the Imaging Chamber." They stood there stuck in their tracks. "There's nothing you can do here. Go. I'll handle this end." The usually calm and collected older Calavicci girls took off like bats out of hell. Sam turned his attention back to Ziggy. "You let me into the Imaging Chamber now!"

"I can't, Dr. Beckett. Allie and Peri have to do this. Please understand. You're needed here. Some of the Admiral's mesons and neurons inhabit your body. You must be here for the retrieval to work."

He put his hand on the console and it didn't respond to his input. "Ziggy, I need to be there. If Al is in trouble, I NEED to be there!"

"Only for your own sake, Doctor, not his. Your presence will skew the percentages negatively. The Admiral needs his physical connection to you to be here in the same reality as his physical body. Without that the odds still go down dramatically."

He wasn't getting anywhere and probably wouldn't, but he had to try. "If Al's leaped out of his body, who is in the hospital?"

"The Admiral's body is there. His essence is with Lothos and Zoë."

"That's not what happens in a regular leap."

"This isn't a regular leap. Lothos is controlling it. We aren't. He called the Admiral to his world. The Admiral has to be released from their side."

"So why are Allie and Peri in the Imaging Chamber?"

"The Admiral won't try to come back on his own. He won't want anyone here to be hurt, but if he thinks his daughters are in jeopardy, then he'll fight back and possibly win."

"You're risking their lives! Are you aware of that?" Sam's anger just grew and grew.

More than a few seconds passed in silence. The computer's voice was concerned and almost sounded apologetic. "Yes, I'm aware that Allegra and Perigrina could be psychologically hurt, though certainly not physically. I had to try, Doctor. The Admiral is being hurt beyond any understanding you or I could ever have. He will live an eternity of insufferable agony unless he dies or finds something inside himself that makes him fight back. Zoë doesn't want him to die, so there's no choice left but to provide a reason for him to fight. I'm sorry, doctor. You can't know how sorry I am."

Ziggy's words diffused Sam's wrath. The helplessness in his heart nearly brought him to his knees. He barely whispered, "Is there anything I can do?"

"Dr. Beckett, activate program RC-61534 and set the parameters to my exact specifications. You may monitor the Imaging Chamber activity from the console, but again, I warn you against interfering with in any way. You will put the girls and the Admiral at risk."

He decided he didn't want to know what that risk was. Approaching the console, he input the requested data and turned on the Imaging Chamber audio and video.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

The night nurse at St. Joseph's Hospital made her rounds, checking in on her patients. The MP outside the Admiral's door checked her identification and allowed her in. The room was dimly lit with the glow of monitors. Karen Jacobson took readings from the various pieces of equipment, writing down her findings. Nothing had changed. Nothing looked like it was going to change and she felt wretched. The daring astronaut earned a better death than this. The slow wasting away of a body was as ugly a process as she ever had to see. More than anything, she hated being powerless to prevent his deterioration. As much as she hated this duty, she felt it was an honor to be responsible for the Admiral.

While she knew he wouldn't answer her, Karen always talked to him. "How are you tonight, Admiral? Feeling any better?" She hung a new bag of nutrients for him and kept on talking. "It's been over a month now, you know. People are really afraid that you're not going to wake up, but I think you are. What do you think?" He lay as still a corpse in a coffin. His respiration was so minimal that she had to stare hard and place her hand on him to feel the rise and fall of his chest. He dropped pounds daily, faster than the doctor's could explain and the outline of ribs began to show through his flesh. She straightened out the thin blanket over him. "You're getting too thin. We'll have to talk to the doctor about getting more calories into you. I wish that was my problem. I could afford to lose about 15 pounds. What do you think?"

No warning, no inclination that anything was about to happen. The Admiral grabbed Karen's hair with both hands and shook her. His grip tightened down. His power came from hell and he bounced her head on the tray table. Her scream brought the MP guarding the Admiral in the room. With all the strength he could muster, he pulled the Admiral away from his victim and wrestled with him. The IV needles disengaged. Blood dripped down the Admiral's arms. The rage inside the patient turned into uncontrollable fury. The MP fought off the slight man until both were on the floor. Karen ran for help.

The MP, there to protect the Admiral, knew this man would kill if given the chance. Finally able to catch both of Al's skinny wrists, the guard held off the attack until a knee in the groin sent him rolling. With more power and strength than he was supposed to have, the Admiral attacked again, grabbing for the MP's loaded gun. Still dizzy, the guard couldn't hold the Admiral off and the gun was now in the hands of a madman intent on killing someone, anyone. It didn't seem to matter.

A hospital security guard ran in as the Admiral aimed the weapon. There was no time to think. Training told the guard to do one thing and one thing only. Reaching for his own gun, he pulled back the trigger and fired. Before realizing what he was doing, he sent a bullet into the body of Admiral Calavicci. Somehow still able to fight back, the Admiral turned the MP's gun toward the guard and two more shots rang out.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

Al trembled in the corner, his hands to his head. Exquisite pain exploded in his body but he had no clue why. Blood poured from his face making the floor thick around him. He didn't notice his children enter and at first they didn't see him.

Allie finally spied him and called to her sister. "That's dad." Summoning more courage than a 16-year-old should have to, she approached the bleeding image and spoke to him. "Dad, it's Allie. Can you see me?" Kneeling next to him, she talked softly and calmly, "Daddy, you have to know me."

Peri looked away from the devastating image of her beloved father. "Where the hell are we?"

He moved toward the sound and his whispered cry begged, "Go away. They can't know you're here. Go away."

"Peri is with me."

Now _two _of his children were involved and it was more agony than he ever imagined possible. "God, no. Go home. Don't come back."

The girls didn't hear the woman enter behind them. There was anger in her words. This surprise was not welcome. "This is perfect, absolutely perfect."

Al confronted Zoë as best he could. "You can see her?"

"See her, darling? I see them both." This was not part of the plan and it threw her bearings off considerably. She had to cover and make the Admiral think it was expected. "It was planned for them to come."

He dragged himself to his feet, not understanding how he could, considering the blood dripping from his head and chest. "Don't you dare touch my girls. I'll kill you."

"Brave, Admiral, but stupid. Haven't you learned anything yet?"

Allie retreated into the corner with Peri and the two held onto each other for courage. They stared at the beautiful and yet somehow horribly ugly woman in front of them. Peri asked her sister, "Is that Zoë?"

Zoë turned her attention to the Calaviccis, "Girls, I'm so sorry. Where are my manners? I am your father's hell. Would you like to see his blood boil?" She turned even more evil, "Literally?"

Peri pleaded, "Please, don't hurt him more."

Zoë circled the girls like a vulture waiting for its prey to die. She mocked Peri's words, "'Don't hurt him more.' How plaintive is the cry of the singer. You are a singer, aren't you Peregrina? Odd name, Peregrina."

Suddenly she decided her name was just fine, "I like it."

Al knew Zoë's game. "She's baiting you, Peri. Don't talk to her, either of you."

The evil woman disregarded Al's comment and circled closer "So, you are his offspring." Pointing to Al she continued, "To think it was allowed to spawn and with a bitch like your mother. It amazes me."

Allie reacted without thinking, "Shut up."

Adrenalin flowed and he moved toward his girls. "Run like hell!" They looked at him, not wanting to go, but afraid of staying. They had no interest in deserting their father, either. Al shouted, "Run, damn it!"

Still holding hands, the girls started a dash toward the door, but they were met with a jolt of electricity that threw them to the floor, stunned and with the breath knocked out of them. Al tried to get to them. Zoë turned her hand toward him and yelled, "Stop, Admiral! Lothos will kill them. If you want them alive, do as I say."

Peri woke first and tended to her injured sister. "Allie, wake up." The teen didn't budge. Looking for help, Peri's eyes met her father's ripped face, "Daddy, help her."

Allie lay on the floor, still and pale. Peri was at a place beyond her abilities. His child looked to him for help. Peri was his special one. They all were his special ones, but this was the one whose sun rose in the west and set in the east. This child had her own way and strength and now the fear in her eyes frosted his soul. His breath quivered with indecision. That indecision however was momentary. Instinct took over and with more malice than he thought himself capable of producing, he lunged at Zoë and circled her elegant neck with strong hands. Her terrified scream echoed out through the room.

Against impossible odds, he struggled with the creature, wrestling her to the ground, watching his blood spatter over her. The harder she fought, the more strength he found. "You will not hurt my girls! You will not hurt them!" His head throbbed. His breathing stopped, but still he clung onto her throat. Zoë tried to call out, tried to break away, but it was useless. Al was going to die killing her. That was his goal.

His knee dug into Zoë's gut and his hands clenched down harder on the windpipe he'd already crushed. Blood pulsed faster out from his chest and head. He didn't dare lose consciousness. Not now. She had to die. He had to kill her. She had to die.

**HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

A triage team surrounded the Admiral in his room, amazed that this wisp still struggled against canvas restraints designed for Mike Tyson's evil twin. The passion of the battle he waged against the unknown demon in their midst sounded out in animal cries of attack. The words weren't understandable, but no one paid much attention to them anyhow. The man was bleeding out at a rate they'd never witnessed in the collective lives.

An orderly used his considerable weight to hold the slight shoulders down on the bed. "Damn, who is this guy trying to kill?"


	8. A Few More Weary Days

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

* * *

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

* * *

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter Eight - A Few More Weary Days**

The phone rang in the Calavicci apartment. Donna ran to get it, hoping to hear from Allie and quiet some of Beth's fears. "Hello?"

The voice at the other end didn't belong to any of her daughters, nor to anyone else she expected to hear from. "This is Dr. Langford. I'd like to speak to Beth Calavicci."

Al's primary physician calling at 11 o'clock at night - something was terribly wrong. "I'll get her. Please hold on." She put her hand over the mouthpiece. "Beth, it's Al's doctor."

Taking the phone, she knew it couldn't be good news. She didn't even bother with preliminaries, "What happened? Is Al okay?"

"Beth, there's been an incident and it's a bit hard to explain. I think we need you to come down as soon as possible. I don't really know what happened. It's bizarre, but you need to come down here right now."

The frayed ends of her patience snapped, "Jim, just tell me what the problem is."

"It's kind of hard to explain."

The dance of the medicos always annoyed her and now that the dance was around her husband, she was steaming with anger. "Spit it out. I don't have time for this. My two youngest daughters are missing."

The doctor hesitated just a bit before explaining, "Al went berserk tonight. He tried to kill Karen Jacobson."

Her husband? Her Al? Attack a nurse? "No, he wouldn't do that."

"He did and I don't know how, considering his condition, but the MP came in and helped Karen get free. Then Al got hold of the MP's gun. Al was about to fire at him when a hospital security guard came in and…"

The pause was enough information. Beth knew Al had been shot, "How bad?"

"Once in the chest and the second bullet went into his head, but he's alive."

A chill of fear unnerved her, "Did Al hurt anyone?"

"No, no. Fortunately, Karen's fine and so are both guards. Not even a scratch."

She knew Al would never forgive himself if innocent people were hurt. That little bit of news was the only part of the phone call that felt good, but it was short-lived. "Where's Al now?"

"In surgery. The bullet in his chest isn't too bad. It's on the right side and didn't appear to hit any major arteries. The other bullet entered his left eye and exited by his left ear." There was no response. "Beth, can you come down? We have to make some important decisions and we need you." There was still no response. "Mrs. Calavicci?"

Finally catching her breath, Beth answered, "I'm here. Just trying to put all this together. Al wouldn't hurt anyone."

"The Admiral we knew wouldn't, but this is a different man. Beth, come to the hospital. You and I and Matt Ballard have to talk."

The psychiatrist was being called back in. There was little chance of explaining Al's actions as medically based. It looked like she finally had to accept the notion her husband was remarkably mentally ill and a danger to himself and to those around him. "I'll be there as soon as I can." The phone found the cradle and Beth sat down to figure out what to do. She finally broke down and cried the story out to Donna.

"He'll be okay, Beth. The docs there are really good."

Beth pulled away, composed herself and made plans. "All right," she wiped her face. "I'm going to call the motor pool and see if someone will drive me. I don't think it's safe to be behind a wheel."

Donna was grateful for Beth's sensibility. "You go get ready and I'll call down for you."

With plans made, Beth and Donna felt better. They were women of action and those actions took their minds off of their emotions. All in all, it was easier to live with their husbands that way.

* * *

Beth and Donna sat in the hospital waiting room, afraid of the news they would hear. Oddly, they were afraid of both possibilities, that Al would die or that he wouldn't. While little John slept oblivious in his carrier, Jim Langford and Matt Ballard mumbled conspiratorially. Ballard decided to break the silence. "I won't even begin to think I understand what you're feeling, Mrs. Calavicci, but we have a real problem now. The Admiral is violent and exceedingly dangerous. We have to admit him to a locked psychiatric unit. There are no options now. He's going to be arrested for assault." 

Beth thought she should be telling this guy to go to hell, but she couldn't even open her mouth.

Donna looked over at her near catatonic friend. "Dr. Ballard, is this necessary right now?"

The psychiatrist remained detached and clinical. "Plans need to be made. When the Admiral comes out of surgery, he'll need to be immediately transferred for his safety and the safety of those around him."

If she was close enough, she would have swatted him, but Donna just said, "Why don't you wait? Beth has two daughters missing and a husband with a bullet in his head. You think she needs to deal with this now?"

Dr. Ballard smiled with a condescension he reserved for his most unrealistic clients and nodded. "Of course. I'll be outside if you feel the need to talk."

Beth turned into a pit bull. "Don't count on it." A pair of steel eyes cut into the other physician. "and Jim, why don't you join your buddy and get the hell out of here."

The men walked out, passing Gia and Tonion their way in.Beth saw them and some comfort entered her eyes, but not much. Gia did the explaining. Tears streamed down her mother's face. Beth choked out, "So, he isn't psychotic?"

Toni took over. "No, mom, but he's in a lot of trouble. This Lothos thing has him and isn't going to let go."

A new fear crept into her heart. "Donna, does Lothos have Allie and Peri too?"

In all honesty and sadness, Donna admitted, "Maybe. Lothos and Zoë may have them all."

Two floors away, in a sterile, cold room, doctors rushed to keep the Admiral alive. Blood was pouring out of his body at a rate faster than it could be replaced. Every bit of the hospital's blood supply was exhausted and blood expanders pumped through him, just trying to keep the fluid volume at a survivable level. It was an impossible task and Al's heartbeat faded to a flat line. A piercing shriek of death filled the room.

The surgeon slapped paddles onto the Admiral's chest and his body arced in response. The sound didn't stop. Again and again, electricity charged through the broken body. The power was increased. More electricity, another demand to "Clear!" Again and again.

* * *

The Control Room at QL rumbled. Sam gave up trying to see what was happening and concentrated on the programming Ziggy demanded. 

"What the hell are we doing, Ziggy?"

"Attempting to retrieve the Admiral. This is our only chance."

"The girls! What about the girls?"

"Just continue programming, doctor. We only have a few more seconds!"

Sam input code, praying that his fingers wouldn't miss a key. The rumbling sound increased and a glow emanated from the Waiting Room. "Is he going to show up here?"

"I don't know, doctor. I don't know where he is!"

In the adjoining room, Peri held her younger sister in her arms, cradling the girl, hoping her sister wasn't dying. The Admiral was across the room killing what Peri could only describe as pure wickedness. The struggle continued. "Daddy! Be careful, please!"

But there was no turning back now. He committed himself to destroying this creature, this thing that would use a man's children. Al watched color drain from Zoë's face. He watched her lips turn blue, felt her body turn limp. "God damn you! You will die! Die!"

As if his command was all it took, Zoë disintegrated in his hands. Her body crumbled into so much dust and blew off with a wind. Al fell forward into the remains of whatever this thing he killed was and screamed in pain as his head hit the floor.

"Daddy!" Her father's body then disappeared from sight and again she yelled out in fear, "Daddy, no!" This time, the sound carried to another place, where Sam Beckett heard and responded as only he could.

"Ziggy, open the Imaging Chamber now!"

As if nothing happened, Ziggy slid open the Imaging Chamber door finally giving Sam access to the Calavicci girls. When he got inside, he found Peri holding her sister, tears streaming down her face. "Uncle Sam. Oh God, Uncle Sam. What happened?"

Sam began checking Allie for injury and the strong pulse and even respiration eased his concern a bit. "I don't know, but we're going to get Allie to the infirmary. She's going to be fine." Peri was only capable of a nod. "Ziggy, call the medics and get them here ASAP."

"Yes, doctor."

There was another question he wanted an answer to, but was afraid to ask. He had to know, though. "Is the Admiral in the Waiting Room?"

Ziggy whispered back in a weary voice, "No, Dr. Beckett. I don't know where he is. I don't know if we were completely successful, but the odds are only 8.82 that we were."

Peri wasn't much of a scientist, but 8.82 odds of success were easy to understand, her father was dead. Her last image of him wasn't going to be a glorious picture of her parents dancing at the ball with her father handsome and elegant in his tail coat. Now she would forever remember him with half his face blown away, bleeding, and murdering. "Uncle Sam, is he dead?"

"Let's take care of Allie and you. Then we can figure out what happened to your dad." Allie began to stir awake. Sam kept her from trying to sit up. "Just stay put, sweetheart. We're getting help." His admonitions didn't mean diddly. She burst into tears, flung her arms around her uncle and cried into his shoulders harder than she had cried in years. "Hush, Allie. It's all over now. You're safe and you're home."

Peri touched her sister's arm. Allie turned to see the older sister who would be the only person to ever really understand. Her need for comforting transferred from Sam to Peri and they clung onto each other knowing things between them would never be the same. How could they?

* * *

Shortly after Al was brought to the ICU, a doctor approached Beth with a look on her face that echoed the fatigue in her step. She tried to put on a smile and she did, but it was forced. "Mrs. Calavicci, I'm Rebecca Corley." She pointed to the comatose Admiral, "I was the primary surgeon working on your husband" Sitting down, she continued, "I don't know how or why he's alive, because it just shouldn't be." She explained the surgery and the miracle of Al's survival. She also wanted to let Beth know that in all likelihood, Al would not survive the night. Beth wanted to stay with her husband and Dr. Corley readily agreed. The surgeon was anticipating the death of a national hero and someone who loved him needed to be there. 

Beth sat next to her comatose husband, his head and chest heavily bandaged. Exhaustion made her eyes close and she laid her cheek against Al's hand and nodded off. Her dreams brought back days of happiness when he used to whisper softly, "Beth." Even in sleep, she smiled at the sound. Her name never sounded quite as beautiful when anyone else said it. In his voice, her name had a tender quality. The sound that came from deep in his chest made it more than just a name. "Beth." The dream startled her and she shook the sound from her head. It suddenly was too painful to think she heard him say it. She opened her eyes and looked at his unrecognizable, bandaged face. Then she heard it again, thin and weak, but she heard, "Beth."

"Al, babe, can you hear me?"

Each word was hard won and painful to speak, "Allie? Peri?"

"They're safe at home with Sam."

"Hurt?"

"They're fine. Scared, but fine."

The horrors of his supreme test sent chills through him and he shook with the aftermath. Finally able to be weak, frightened and dependent, he asked his dearest love, "Hold me?"

She cradled his battered body and both believed the worst was over.

* * *

The next day, Sam dropped all other projects to work with Ziggy on getting answers. With Al still in intensive care, he began researching and deciphering code he never saw before. 

"Ziggy, where did this stuff come from?"

"It appears to be uploaded programming from Lothos."

Tossing a sledge hammer into his stomach wouldn't have hit him any harder. "You just figure this out or are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"The foreign programs could only be from Lothos. It seemed too obvious to even bring it your attention."

"How did you get them?"

"It's a long story, Dr. Beckett."

"We got time now, thank God. Spill it."

Ziggy related the story of Al's demonic obsession by Lothos. It began right after Sam returned home. The evil computer had mastered a technique where infiltration of the target was insidious. Al's strange behaviors and odd little outbursts turned out to be a part of a master plan to discredit Quantum Leap in the eyes of the scientific community and to eliminate Admiral Calavicci and his recollections of Sam's leaps. It was to occur without any awareness on the part of QL.

"You mean, we were monitored by Lothos and Zoë?"

"Yes, Dr. Beckett. I didn't detect the monitoring until after the Admiral collapsed. That's when things started not to make sense to me."

Sam was mad now. "Why didn't you invite me into this? Do you have any idea what all this did to Al's family? They cried enough to fill a river."

Her voice was quiet. "I know very well how the Admiral's family reacted. It was hard not to tell you, but I couldn't. If Lothos knew we understood what was happening, then the Admiral would have been killed and retrieving him would have been impossible. I had to keep it secret until I knew how to help. This is where Allegra came into the picture. Her neurological patterns almost duplicate the Admiral's. Therefore, I predicted Lothos wouldn't notice Allegra's presence. At least that was my theory and it worked, but it wasn't enough for the Admiral to fight back sufficiently."

"So all this was a plot to destroy Quantum Leap."

"And your reputation and the Admiral's. It would also have led to me being dismantled. Essentially, all evidence of your success would have been erased, allowing Lothos to continue putting wrong that which you put right."

Sam paced slowly around his lab. The enormity of Lothos' evil was just starting to back to him. Now he was learning the computer was still "alive" and willing to kill. "You took a big chance sending Al's children into the Imaging Chamber."

"It was for the greater good, Dr. Beckett."

"Allie and Peri could have been killed. You took too much of a chance."

"As I told you earlier, the girls were never in physical danger from Zoë since they were holographic images."

"Yeah, great, but Allie felt some kind of zap and fell. We're lucky it wasn't anything serious."

Ziggy understood. "Yes, Dr. Beckett, her injury was unanticipated and I apologize, but it was only the presence of both girls that made the Admiral's paternal instinct kick in strongly enough to bring him home. Allegra's mesons and neurons are virtually identical to her father's therefore I could not be sure Zoë would see her. Perigrina's mesons and neurons are diametrically opposite to her father's. Zoë would certainly know that Perigrina was there. The Admiral had to believe Zoë was a threat to others therefore both girls had to be there to insure they would be seen. Their combined presence gave the Admiral the strength to conquer Lothos. Considering what was at stake, I felt it warranted the risk."

"Tell that to their father."

"I think I'll omit that fact from any report the Admiral may request. Bottom line is Lothos had to be destroyed."

Sam smiled, "Al destroyed Lothos. God bless him."

"Dr. Beckett, I didn't say that. We can't make the assumption that Lothos has been destroyed. I have very little information about the last encounter. We cannot be certain of the outcome on the other end. I'll need your help in interpreting the data I was able to upload."

He sat at the computer console, took a deep breath and said, "Let's get started. This is going to take a long time."

* * *

Dust blew into a cosmic swirl, a void, yet not so much a null place as one whose most evil yin had no yang to counter the anguish of perpetual torment. The screech of a thousand fires burned and nothing was there to douse the intensity. This dust, it refused to settle, this powder that remained after all water was eliminated, blowing through the atmosphere, sifting over a humanity that knew enough hate and evil. It was dead. However, like Scrooge's Marley, it would be back, sans benevolence.

* * *


	9. The End is a Beginning

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

* * *

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

* * *

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter Nine - The End is the Beginning**

Al returned to the Project ten weeks after the ordeal with Lothos ended. His body wasted away, 30 pounds dropped from his slight frame. He wasn't walking, but that would change in time. After being home for two months with ten pounds regained, he had the second reconstructive surgery to repair his damaged face. That provided him with two more weeks in the hospital. Now home for another two months, he was able to walk short distances in a minimum of pain, but even an additional six months of recuperation weren't enough to erase the anguish of his crucible. It was now almost a year since his collapse in Albuquerque. He gained back another ten pounds, but they were hard won and at 134 he was still too skinny. Problem was his weight started to fall again and in a few short weeks, he dropped to 120 pounds. It was a frightening process to watch. Wasting away became a phrase that had literal reality to it.

The Admiral couldn't concentrate for more than a minute before his mind wandered. It drove him crazy and didn't do much for anyone else either. He turned inward, smiling rarely, interested in little other than staring at nothing. The marks of his obsession weren't just apparent in the scars on his face. His mind was damaged, his emotions ripped from his soul and emptiness was the path of least resistance. There was no denying it now. Al was deep in the throes of mental illness and the longer it took Sam to find some kind of answer for "why" it happened, the deeper Al crawled into it.

Beth convinced Gia, Toni, and Peri to go on with their lives and return to their homes, families, and careers. Allie returned to high school, but like her father, there was sadness in her heart that couldn't be assuaged. She came home each day, did her homework, had dinner and curled up in his arms, never allowing him to be alone. They spoke quietly and only seemed to want each other's company. No others had the knowledge they had and it created a bond that shut out the hurtful world.

Peri moved into an apartment in Albuquerque. She called daily, sometimes two or three times. She wanted her father and her sister. The conversations were short, always oddly cryptic, but it was a ritual she appeared to have no interest in ending. Her music became darker and sadder, but it also became more complex growing in an interesting direction. The story of her father's ordeal obsessed her and she was writing a series of songs about the inner workings of despair, fear, and the overriding power of love and devotion. These were ideas of which she had newfound knowledge gained by the ugliest of experiences.

The situation had Beth crying herself to sleep every night. She wouldn't trade Al's life for anything, but this life was more difficult than she could imagine. Pinning her hopes on Sam was all she had left. Day after day, she waited for news from the labs.

Sam visited every morning. He and Al chatted about the progress toward discovering what happened. There was one essential data bank Ziggy couldn't crack open and Sam felt that was the key they needed. Al was polite, appeared interested sometimes, but the result was always the same. He slowly lost his concentration and retreated into his mind and his memories. At that point, Sam may as well have been a chair for all the attention Al paid to him.

Holding Beth's hand, Sam made his way to the door. "Beth, is he ever any different?"

"No and every time I bring up the subject of help, he goes off the deep end."

"I don't know if he should have a choice. Maybe he needs a psych hospital for awhile."

Closing her eyes against the image she nodded, "I know, Sam. I've mentioned it to him and he gets this frightened look I can't deal with. The few times I said something, he clung to me the rest of the day as if I was going to leave him. He turns into a little boy and all I see is a seven year old trying to be good so his mother won't run away. Whatever help he gets, it has to start here. Do you think Verbena would help? I know she went back to private practice in Chicago, but I've been thinking of calling her."

"No other psychiatrist would understand his background like she does. I'll call her." They hugged and parted.

Beth walked to her husband, sat down next him and put her hand in his. "Hey, babe, you want to go for a walk?"

Her eyes still fascinated him. They held all the love he knew could exist. He didn't want this distance between them, but getting close scared him. She didn't see the struggle it was for him to nod simply, slowly get up and take her hand. They left the apartment to take a walk.

Sam walked as well, back down to his lab. He was getting close, but he knew he was missing the one element that would help solve the riddle. Al had to be there, but Sam felt the Admiral wasn't strong enough to be shoved into the thick of things yet. Closing the door behind him, he opened communication with Ziggy and started in. "Good morning, Ziggy."

"Good morning, Dr. Beckett. I take it you haven't asked the Admiral to join us."

"I can't. Not yet. He's still a mess." With identical sighs, man and computer began working again on the last piece to the puzzle.

* * *

A week later, Verbena Beeks came back to QL. Before unpacking her clothes in her old quarters, she knocked on the door of her Commander-in-Chief. Beth welcomed Verbena home and brought her to the only patio in the entire Project Complex where Al sat looking out at the distant mountains. "Long time, no see, Admiral."

Her voice was always a calming force. Looking behind him, he saw the face that also had that effect, "Verbena?" He stood up to go to her. The labor in his effort pained the psychiatrist, but she let him work at it. Bony arms embraced her. "Dear God, I'm glad you're here."

The black patch across his face had a dashing Errol Flynn quality, but the cruelty of it hit Verbena hard. She wanted to touch the mask and let him know she cared no matter what. "I've missed you all a lot. Private practice just doesn't hold the same intrigue for me." She could feel him leaning into her, needing support to stand. "Can we sit down?" They moved toward the wicker settee.

"Why don't you two just talk a little. I really haven't filled Verbena in on what happened." Beth excused herself under the pretense of making some iced tea.

Alone with a new trusted confidante, he said, "It was Lothos and Zoë. They did this."

"That's what Beth and Sam told me. You look like shit, Admiral." She hoped her smile would relay the affection in the jibe and it did. He smiled back. "Good. I was hoping to see that again. I hear smiling isn't one of your better things lately."

As quickly as it came, the smile disappeared and he became lost in remembered terror. "They made me do it all again."

"Do what?"

His mind's eye brought it back, the pain, the fear, the panic. "Everything, everything all again."

The last thing she wanted to do was hurt this man who had been to hell and back more times than a human being was meant to, but even her insight couldn't come near to understanding his words. "'Everything all again.' I don't know what you mean."

Staring back out onto the mountains he said, "I don't know, either." She let the silence last as long as he wanted. "Verbena, are you staying?"

"I'm back, Al. I'm going to stay as long as you want me to."

"Don't go away. I need you."

It was a positive response, one that encouraged her. The Admiral may be in trouble, but he knew it and was receptive to her help. It was a good homecoming.

Beth brought in the tea and Al didn't speak again.

The afternoon was spent hearing stories of Verbena's new life. She stayed for dinner and then excused herself saying she'd be back the next day. Allie retreated into her room to study. Al listened to the same CD he listened to almost every night, sad, melancholy classical guitar music of Rodrigo. Beth read or watched television and then it was time for sleep.

The night brought Al dreams. Dreams brought memories. Memories brought nightmares, screams, and drenching sweats. Not every night, but more than he wanted. This time, the screams were deafening and Beth couldn't awaken her husband from his hell.

"Al! Come on. Wake up! It's okay, baby, you're home." Her arms encircled his trembling body.

He could see where he was. He knew the place, but the screaming could not be stopped. It tore at his mind and bits of his brain ripped away.

The commotion brought Allie into the room. "Daddy, no!"

Beth ordered, "Go back to bed, Allie."

"Mama, I can bring him back." Without waiting for permission, she knelt next to the bed and held his hands. "Daddy, I know. I know. I know. I know."

Allie repeated the mantra over and over. A minute later, his screams began to quiet. Slowly, with his child still chanting, they diminished and within five minutes, he was silent, exhausted and back in a kind of sleep that hopefully brought him some rest and respite. The child helped lay him back onto the damp pillow and then, seeking her own comfort in her mother's arms, she cried. Beth smoothed down the curls that flew every which way. "It's okay, baby, so strong and brave. I love you."

She didn't bother to wipe away her tears. "Mom, something is really wrong. It's still really wrong."

"Verbena is here now. I think she can help."

"No, she can't." A gut reaction was all she had to go on. "Dr. Beeks can't help."

Al moved and started to take in long breaths. "I have to talk to Sam."

She gently pushed on his fragile chest keeping him down. "It's two thirty. We'll wait until morning."

A quick angry reply snapped back. "Call him."

Beth was about to try to talk sense when Allie said, "Dad's right. I don't know why, but he's right. I can call if you want me to, Mom."

There could be no other resolution. "I'll call."

Fifteen minutes later, Al, Beth, Allie, Sam and Verbena sat around the kitchen table. A pot of coffee brewed and a few muffins decorated a plastic dish. Sam hadn't taken time to wash up and was still rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Al, why this powwow?"

"I know why." It wasn't meant to be an answer to Sam's question. "You said Ziggy gave ninety something odds that Lothos and Zoë were destroyed."

"97.889. When you killed Zoë, you destroyed the neural link with Lothos. Without that, Lothos is inoperative."

The good eye glistened. "The link is not dead."

"Dad, Peri saw her die. She disappeared into little pieces."

His gut was tight and chills shook his body. "They're not dead."

Verbena took his hand. "Admiral, you're under a lot of pressure.

Before she had a chance to say another word, he stood and pounded his fists into the table. "You're not listening to me. Quantum Leap is going to be destroyed. We're all going to die, Gia, Toni, Peri, they're going to die. Our grandchildren will die. Donna and little John will die. Don't you see? We have to be eliminated."

The final straw dropped on Beth. "What are we supposed to do?"

"You can't do anything to stop it." His knees gave way and he fell back into his chair "Sam, please, help me."

The greatest mind of all time stuttered out, "You're not making any sense at all." Sam felt he had to bring it up. "Al, you need help and I think maybe a hospital."

"You're not listening to me." His voice found strength and he spoke like a commander again. "I have to go back."

It took a fraction of a second for Sam to figure out what Al was saying. He looked at his friend. "You can't be serious."

The intensity of Al's words and posture gave Sam his answer. "There's no other way. I have to go back. It's that simple."

Sam went back to rubbing his eyes. It gave him something to do. "Al, so far all I know is that you think Lothos is out to get all of us and that you can stop it. What the hell are you talking about? I can't help if I don't understand."

There was almost a wickedness in his gaze. "That's because you don't want to understand. You know what's happening. You feel it."

Sam felt a shockwave of something, but exactly what it was he couldn't comprehend. The sensation was a fraction of a second of pain so incendiary that it destroyed his ability to feel it. It was there, though, a quark of understanding, but not enough to explain what was happening to his friend, his mentor and this sad, sad man whose life was washing away like a child's sidewalk chalk rainbow after a summer storm.

Al touched Sam's hand. "You and Ziggy have to figure out how to get me back to Lothos and you have to do it quick. We don't have time to waste. We have to start right now."

Exploring Lothos, the evil that Al embodied, held no appeal. "It's two thirty. We can talk in the morning. I want to go back to sleep."

Pain overtook the Admiral and he cried out. "This is going to happen to all of us. Sam, you and Ziggy, you have to get the coordinates. Get me back to where I was!" He collapsed onto the floor into a ball, whimpering with pain and more fragile than a newborn fawn.

Everyone surrounded the struggling man. Beth looked at Sam and silently asked for help. The physicist easily picked Al up off the floor and carried the weary body back to his bedroom. He and Beth put Al back to bed and then relaxed as his breathing evened out and sleep eased the angry memories plaguing the hero. They spoke in whispers, "Beth, what was that all about?"

She ushered him out of the bedroom. "I have no idea. I don't know whether to believe him or whether this is part of the aftermath or if he's mentally ill."

Allie came up behind them. "Mom, you need to believe him."

There was something in the young girl's eyes that seemed to give credence to her words. Sam asked, "Why should we? What's going on?"

"You didn't believe me when I said Ziggy had me in the Imaging Chamber. This is the same thing. Dad knows and we have to believe him."

The tango was making Beth crazy, "What does he know? Allie, we're not getting any answers from your father or from you. Just these crazy notions that he has to go back. To what? Why are we all in danger? It makes no sense."

"He knows what he's asking for."

All along this weird ride, Sam doubted the unbelievable talk he heard and each time, the stranger the words, the more true they proved out. Then, there was that shudder down his spine earlier. "I'm going to the lab. I'm not sure of anything anymore, but too much of what Al and Allie told us has been right. I have to trust them and their intuition." Maybe it was time to own up to his own anxieties. "There's something that pulls inside me every time Al says this stuff. I don't know anymore if it's my own thoughts or if that part of him I have, those loose mesons and neurons we traded when we switched places. Something is keeping him like this and if he tells me he has to go back, then I have to trust him."

Verbena joined the debate. "But he's talking crazy. He isn't strong enough to go back into the Imaging Chamber."

He couldn't argue with her. The facts seemed apparent. The man had just collapsed during nothing more strenuous than a conversation. There was no way he could survive another meeting with Lothos. "I know, Verbena, but I owe it to him to try. Maybe I can go back instead."

"Uncle Sam, it has to be Dad. He's the one they want."

"Why, Allie?"

The answer seemed simple to her, even if she didn't understand it completely, "Because he remembers everything and you don't."

"You think Lothos is still a threat to us?"

She didn't have facts to back her up. All she knew was that Lothos was still out there waiting for the right moment to destroy Quantum Leap. "It will start with one of us and end with Dad. He'll be the one who'll watch it all happen."

Nothing else needed saying. Sam squeezed Beth's hand, gave Allie a quick kiss on her forehead and walked out. Beth followed him out of the bedroom toward the front door. "Where are you going, Sam?"

"Where else? The lab. I have to figure out a way to get Al back there again."

Though hurt, disfigured and mentally ill, Beth had her husband and she'd take him like that over having him dead. "You're going to kill him. Can't you see that?"

"If Lothos wants us dead, then we don't have a chance unless we strike first." He laughed at hearing the words. "Strike first - I sound like a military man. Wonder where I learned to think like that?" Beth wasn't amused. Sam continued, "I have to trust Al's instincts. They've proven right too many times and if he's right this time, then it could be one of your girls that gets hurt next, your girls, my son. I have to try it his way."

Sam left the Calavicci apartment and made his way toward the lab. The yawn he stifled reminded him of the hour, but he continued on. The lights automatically adjusted when he entered. Ziggy spoke first, "I see the Admiral has finally realized his mission."

If Sam had something to throw it would have been heaved at the source of the voice. "If you know things, just tell me. How did you know something was up with Al?"

"An assumption, Dr Beckett. It isn't like you to come here in the middle of the night unless something unique has occurred."

It was a Homer Simpson moment, but Sam refrained from saying d'oh! Instead, he told Ziggy, "The Admiral wants us to design a program to take him back to Lothos. Can we do it?"

Sultry, sexy and coy, Ziggy opined, "Oh doctor, if only we could."

* * *


	10. Stone Dead Already

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**

* * *

**

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

* * *

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter Ten - Stone Dead Already  
**  
While the night brought work to Sam and Ziggy, for Al it brought restlessness and unease. The fatigue keeping him in bed was less a part of his own weakness than an imposition by forces beyond the project. They still had him and he wasn't able to explain it; again, an imposition by Lothos designed to create a facade. So far, it had worked, but tonight he seemed to break through it for a moment or two. Tonight he was able to tell the truth, if they believed him.

Beth lay next to him, still beautiful after more than four decades of marriage. A few crow's feet adorned her face now, but they appeared recently, probably in response to Al's dilemma. He leaned over and, not wanting to wake her, kissed her hair. In his quietest of voices he said, "I love you. Don't ever forget that."

His thin body moved to the edge of the bed and slipped out without notice. Dressing was a trick, but he got a pair of slacks and a sweater on and slippered feet made their way toward his office. Labored steps throbbed through his calves and exhaustion threatened, but he plodded along knowing there was only one way to put an end to Lothos. The light from the lab glowed softly through the windowed door. A trembling hand placed on the security panel slid the door open and Al entered his old domain. It felt right being back and for the first time he could recall, adrenalin rushed, calming the shake in his knees, just like the old days. "We can do this easier if I work with you."

Sam turned in surprise. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'll know if you're on the right track."

The frail older man did seem stronger and that was encouraging. "You think you're up to this? I mean, I'm tired already and, no offense, I'm a little healthier than you."

"Dead people are healthier than me."

The crack was classic Calavicci and Sam laughed. "Then, I got a few questions for you." He put his hand on his friend's elbow and led him toward a chair.

The old days were back to a degree. They studied equations, researched data banks, reread transcripts from Al's last encounter. The Admiral's battle-scarred face showed signs of fragility, but he fought back until dawn started showing through the skylight. Sam put his hand on Al's shoulder. "I need some food and a few hours rest. That okay with you?"

Stopping would mean having to start again and he didn't think he had enough energy for that. "I'll stay here, if you don't mind."

Well, he did mind. Leaving Al alone wasn't an option. "Maybe I can send for some food and coffee. How's that?"

Al hunched over the terminal in front of him. He wasn't paying Sam much attention. "Yeah, that's fine with me." He leaned his right hand on the table for support, but it gave way and his forehead cracked against the desk.

Sam reached out and caught Al before he fell off the chair and dropped to the floor. "Maybe it's not so fine." He led Al to the nearby couch and helped him lie down. "Let's take a look at the damage."

The arm that gave way now pushed against Sam's hands. "Leave me alone. It's nothing."

"I'm the doctor, so let me show off a little here. Doesn't look like much, but if I don't give you the once over, Beth will have my hide."

There was truth in what Sam said and he leaned back to allow his friend a better look. Leaning back felt pretty good, anyhow. Tired eyelids closed down and a shuddering breath gave voice to his need for intermission. Gingerly, Sam probed the growing black and blue mark above the missing eye. "That tender?" There was a slight acknowledgment. "I think you'll live."

With eyes still closed, Al admitted, "For a little while at least."

Thinking he was hearing the old Calavicci again, Sam laughed, "That a threat?"

"I'm going to die before this is over." He lowered his head and met Sam's eyes with a smile. "It has to be and don't fight me on this. It's time and I'm fine with it."

Another curve thrown, Sam shook his head. "I'm glad you're fine with it."

"Good, because I am." The air in his lungs wasn't doing enough for him so he took a few deep breaths, but the effort made him weaker. "Please, Sam, I got to be fine with it or it won't work."

Nothing the Admiral said made sense to him, but this was off the charts. "What are you talking about? I don't understand anything you're saying." Like his friend and mentor, he paced the room with nervous energy blasting out of every limb. "So you're fine with dying. To hell with the rest of us, but as long as you're fine. Damn you, Calavicci!" He didn't want to be angry with this man whose life was dripping from him like a leaky faucet that couldn't be fixed. And maybe it wasn't the Admiral he was angry with, but he wanted something tangible, something he could feel, touch, see and all he had was interpretations of code that ended up telling him nothing. While he wanted to melt into a puddle of wretched sadness, he wouldn't do that in front of Al. Staying strong was imperative and it was time for him to take control. "Now, whether you like it or not, I'm getting a wheelchair and taking you back to your apartment where you belong."

Al defied the younger, stronger, and far healthier man. "I'm staying here. I have to. You need sleep? Then go. I can work on my own." Somehow, he got to his feet. Staggering, but defiant steps moved back toward the terminal. Sam moved between the Admiral and his goal. Without a second thought, Al hauled off and slugged the physicist in the gut with all the strength he had.

The punch was more surprise than aching, but Sam backed off. "What the hell was that for?"

The blow surprised the Admiral as well. He tried to cover, "Right, like it hurt. Leave me alone, Beckett." He pushed Sam to the side and went on. His stomach churned and he fought nausea rising inside him. "I have to be there soon. It's my last chance."

"For what? You talk in circles and I can't figure you out. It's like a bad computer sim. I don't understand your mental contortions anymore, Al. You're twisting things around in your head, I don't know whether to trust you or commit you."

The gaze that glared into him held only anger and hate. "You just try to have me committed."

This wasn't right. Sam didn't recognize the man in front of him, but he continued to talk calmly. "Al, we both need some sleep and food. We can come back in a few hours. Ziggy will keep working without us. We won't be losing time."

The stance changed. He was weak and quiet again. "I don't want to go home."

"Let me get a wheelchair for you." Weariness sagged the Admiral's shoulders even more and for the second time in less than eight hours, he started unceremoniously toward the floor. Sam caught him before he collapsed. He carried Al to the couch. "At least you're a skinny son of a bitch. I'm going to call Beth."

Adjusting his head on the couch he pleaded, "Please, don't. I'll rest here."

The fist-fighting person inhabiting the Admiral was gone and Sam's friend was back, but he didn't trust that the other man wouldn't show up again. "I'll call the commissary and have them send down something to eat." Al's good eye closed and in a few passing seconds, he was asleep. Sam searched in the closet for the safety blanket and used it to cover the Admiral. "Good. Stay asleep. It'll be better for both of us." Sam sat on the floor and leaned back against the couch. In a few minutes, he also nodded off.

Ziggy worked while her inventors slept. She finally had the opportunity to run the programs she wanted to run. As she had before, she kept secrets from Sam and the Admiral. Information about Lothos and Zoë were locked inside, as were bits of Lothos' programming. These would have to be accessed by the Admiral in order to make contact with the evil leaper. Ziggy and Al knew that. Sam didn't, yet.

* * *

Beth woke up without her husband and terror was her first instinct. She found his pajamas tossed onto the floor of the bathroom. Al was a neat freak almost to the point of distraction. Leaving clothes on the floor wasn't like him. "Ziggy, where's Al?" 

"Admiral Calavicci is in the lab with Dr Beckett. He is well and appears to be sleeping soundly. They're both asleep at the moment. It's quite a charming, domestic scene."

Knowing where and how Al was soothed her frazzled nerves, sort of. She could relax again if only for a few minutes. Why did he go to Sam's office in the middle of the night? "Good grief."

"I never fully understood how grief can be good."

"Don't get into philosophy now." She turned Ziggy off and snuck a peak in at her youngest child.

Allie yawned and with her father's gesture, wiped her hand across her eyes. "Hi, Mom. Where's Dad? Why isn't he home?"

Beth had no clue how Allie knew her father wasn't home. Allie seemed to know a lot of things and Beth opted not to ask her the why of this particular moment. She just told the girl, "He's at the lab with your Uncle Sam. It's time for you to get ready for school."

An unsettled feeling crept through Allie's skin. "No." Her instantaneous remark surprised her as much as it surprised her mother.

"You don't plan on going to school today?"

With a certainty, she looked at her mother. "No, I'm not going. I have to be with Dad today and don't ask me why. I don't know." Her eyes tightened against the tears she knew were about to fall. She started to cry. Beth rushed to Allie and held her. "Oh Mom, I really don't know. When is this going to stop? I'm so scared and tired. I'm always tired, just like Daddy."

Beth rocked her baby. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry you got involved. This is unfair to you, very unfair. Your father never meant for you to be caught up in this. He would never hurt you. Believe that with all your heart."

"I know, Mama. Daddy is protecting all of us as best he can. It's a thousand times worse for him. Sometimes, he has to let up a little and that's when I feel it. Peri does too. Mom, please have her come home. She feels so alone. She has to come home. Can I call her? I want to talk to her."

"Let me call the school first. I'll forget if I don't do it right away. Now, I want you to go back to bed. You have to stay strong. We'll call Peri in a little while and make sure she gets home." Allie crawled down into the covers and Beth tucked her daughter in and began to sing the song she sang to all the girls and even to her MIA husband when he came home barely alive. "Baby mine, don't you cry. Baby mine, dry your eyes." Allie closed her eyes and Beth, because of her own needs, gently brushed curls from the girl's face. "All those same people who scold you, what they'd give just for the right to hold you." It was hard for Beth to imagine anyone not wanting to hold her baby, but some malevolent force in the universe threatened the lives of all her family. It was an unfathomable thought. She sang more quietly, "But you're so precious to me, sweet as can be, baby of mine." Allie was sleeping again.

Beth quietly made her way out of the child's room. A call was made to the high school. Then she called her third child and asked Peri to come to the project and practically before they were off the phone, Peri was on her way. Beth, needing as much support as possible, called the two older daughters. They would be arriving early in the afternoon and the worried wife and mother tried to prepare herself for a day she knew was only going to get worse.

* * *

The Admiral remained asleep long after Sam awoke with a horrible crick in his neck. Sleeping on the floor with his head flung back against the couch in his office wasn't the best way to get the rest he needed, but it had to do. Al wasn't about to go home where he belonged and Sam couldn't leave him alone. If his neck was going to ache, so be it. 

Back at his computer terminal, Sam was trying to find more uploaded programs from Lothos, but the evil computer was good. Finding glitches in the system was exceedingly difficult. It reminded Sam of a book his father read to him when he was a kid. After driving through **The Phantom Tollbooth**,the boy Milo found himself inside the Mountains of Ignorance and the Demons of Useless Tasks kept the boy working at futile jobs that numbed his brain. The brilliant physicist shook his head from the memory and moved from useless tasks to his imperative mission. Sam wondered about the person who created this thing. Then he wondered if Lothos was a computer at all. Al used to tell Sam that there was a devil; that he had been on the receiving end of his evil. If they were dealing with a supernatural entity, with the devil, then Sam had no control over what happened. At first, Sam didn't believe in Al's devil, but too much had happened to him. He saw the power Lothos had and there was only one explanation for it.

The thought horrified him for several minutes, but he began to feel that Lothos could be conquered. The devil had been conquered in the past and Al certainly did something to him those months ago when all hell broke loose in the Imaging Chamber. Sam smiled when he realized hell did break loose and Al survived it. In fact, Al defeated it. Sam decided to take another look at Ziggy's data regarding the last episode. Somehow, he felt he had missed something.

Sam was intent on his work and, as was his habit, he lost awareness of things around him. The **A**dmiral awakened and began to shiver with cold. There was no voice inside him to call out. He tried, but nothing sounded. The shaking continued and became increasingly more violent. Though he wanted to, he couldn't get his body to obey him. The shaking turned into convulsions and Sam finally heard the commotion. He flew to the Admiral's side and did what he could, which was very little. "I'm here, Al. Hang on." Sam worked to keep Al on the couch where he was safe from banging his head or breaking one of his fragile bones. A full five minutes passed with no end in sight. Sam knew that brain damage was a good possibility. "Come on, buddy, this has gone on long enough." Al looked into Sam's eyes with a vacuous gaze. Sam suddenly became fearful that Al was becoming lost again as he had so many months before. "Don't you dare pop out on me! **God** damn you! You come back here now!"

Al heard Sam calling to him. He was fighting the pull of that other world, fighting it as best he could. If he found a voice, if he could say something, anything, he felt he might win the skirmish. Searching his memory as best he could he wanted to find words so ingrained that he would be able to speak them in his sleep. Then he saw them and he started to read the script in his head. Nothing sounded out. He forced himself to try again.

Garbled mumbling spit out, "Nu . . . 33-39-37."

Sam heard numbers. "What are the numbers, Al? What do they mean?"

Once again Sam heard the voice, but nothing sounded clear.

He needed Sam to hear him. Again, the words mumbled out, but this time he made sure Sam would understand. "Alber' Cal vicci, Adml, 15 Ju 19, s num 33-39-37."

Sam finally heard the entirety of the words. "Your name, rank and serial number? Al, come on back here. Come on!"

In a breakthrough voice, Al called out, "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37." and the convulsing began to lessen. In a few minutes, it quieted down. Al kept up his mantra. "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

Sam tried to bring Al into the present, "Come on, buddy. You're okay. It's all over. Come on back to me."

Al had trouble getting his breath. He panted and gasped until that too finally evened out and he knew the attempt to possess him had failed - this time, probably. "Sam? Are you really Sam?"

"Yeah, Al, it's me. What the hell was that?"

"I can't stop him again. It's too hard."

The Admiral wanted to sit up, but Doctor Beckett stopped him. "Stay down. That was some seizure you had. Anything feel off?"

Al tried to isolate the pain he had, but it was hard. "I don't know."

Sam put his hand on his friend's back to help him sit. As soon as Sam touched the Admiral's right shoulder Al let out a short yelp.

"Ziggy, contact the infirmary. I want a gurney up here now." The doctor could feel the dislocated shoulder through the Admiral's sweater. There was no easy way to take care of it. It was going to hurt, but it had to be done quickly. "Okay, Al. This is not going to be fun. I got to pull your arm back into place. You ready?" Al nodded slightly and took as deep a breath as possible. The doctor positioned himself, took a hold of the Admiral's wrist and swiftly pulled the arm and pushed against the shoulder. The joint slipped back into place with a groan from the patient. Sam placed the injured arm across Al's chest. "Try not to move it. I want to make sure the rest of you is in one piece." The exam was completed and the shoulder seemed to be the extent of it. The exhausted Admiral settled into the couch, his eye closed and his breathing sounded regular. "Al, you still with me?"

"Please get Beth."

"Ziggy, did you hear that?"

The computer responded, "Yes, Dr. Beckett. I will let Mrs. Calavicci know she is wanted. Should I have her go to the infirmary?"

Two ensigns arrived with the gurney. "Have her meet us there." The young men waited for instructions. "Be careful of his right shoulder." They gently hoisted the Admiral onto the conveyance, strapped him down and with Sam following, they made their way through the complex to the infirmary where Sam was going to make sure he got some x-rays.

* * *

Sam requested a full series just to insure that the shoulder was the only real problem added to the Admiral's litany. Beth helped Sam secure Al's arm to his chest. The IV Sam ordered fed the patient fluids and nutrition. Sam also managed to slip in a mild sedative. The seizure sapped Al's energy, but he was edgy and sleep wasn't going to come without some help. As he faded off, Sam pulled Beth away. "Let's talk." 

Allie waited in the infirmary waiting room. Her mother and Uncle Sam came out to her. They both smiled and she immediately felt relief. "He's okay for now?"

Sam sighed, "For now. His shoulder will be fine in a few days. I know he's had problems with that arm in the past, ever since Vietnam if I'm right. Anyhow, I'm less concerned about the shoulder than I am as to what precipitated the seizure."

The Admiral's youngest told them, "Lothos was trying to possess him." Beth literally had to bite her tongue to keep from saying anything yet again.

As odd as it sounded to Sam, he knew that it was time for him, Ziggy and the rest of the project to take this girl's words seriously and never again doubt the veracity of what she said. He looked at her and dreaded the question he was about to ask. "Allie, is Lothos a computer like Ziggy or an entity more like . . ." He didn't want to say it out loud because he knew he sounded insane. "Is Lothos more like the devil?"

Allie looked into her soul for an answer. "It's a computer, but not like Ziggy. It has stuff in it like Ziggy does." Sam was unclear. "Stuff, Uncle Sam. You know like Ziggy has part of you and Daddy in her."

"Ziggy contains our mesons and neurons." His gut tightened again and for some reason, his shoulder hurt a little. "Where did Lothos get his mesons and neurons?"

There was a bit of trepidation in her voice, "You don't believe me."

Sam held her hands, "I have to believe you. You and your dad have intimate knowledge of that other realm, wherever it is and whatever it is. I'm done questioning what you tell me. I need to know so Ziggy and I can help your father end this nightmare for all of us."

Like the Admiral earlier, Allie searched for a sound, but words didn't come. Her eyes hardened as she stood and walked into her father's room. Sam and Beth followed, watching the child walk to the far side of her father's bed. She stood next to the IV pole. A queer smile slowly grew and her head cocked to the side. "He's better off dead." Allie threw the IV pole to the side and yanked the tube from her father's arm. The monitor screeched out a warning. Beth screamed for Allie to stop. The girl's clenched fists smashed into the Admiral's chest and gut over and over again. Sam couldn't get to her fast enough. He pulled Allie away doing his best to contain her without harming her.

Beth went to Allie and held the child's face in her hands. "Not you, too. Allie, don't go away from me. Please, don't go."

Al's baby girl didn't understand what was happening to her. As she came back to a better world, she begged, "Uncle Sam, let me go. What's wrong?" Sam released her and went to the Admiral's side. Beth held her daughter while Sam worked frantically to extract the needle sliding deeper into a vein.

Al never saw his child attack. He stayed blessedly unaware. The IV needle was dug out, but the damage was done. The rip in the Admiral's vein bled under his skin and his arm rapidly changed color. Sam attended to his patient. "Beth, take Allie home. I'll call Commander Petrocelli to help here."

Crying through her words Allie horrifyingly admitted, "Mama, I didn't mean it."

"I know, baby. I know." She moved her child closer to the door and they slipped out leaving Sam to care for Al's newest wound.

Al's body was incredibly delicate and the needle tore the vein in his arm. He had pressure on the bleeder, but he needed help. "Ziggy, contact Emily Petrocelli. Get her down here now."

"Yes, Dr. Beckett."

Sam maintained the pressure, but the bleeding didn't ease. Al's arm started swelling and changing color. He began to stir and awaken. "God, it hurts."

"I know. The needle tore a hole in your vein. It's bleeding a lot. I have to keep pressure on it."

Blood red corneas looked into Sam's eyes. "I can feel it ripping into my shoulder."

Al was right. Sam saw the discoloration moving in both directions, both up and down the arm. "Is Lothos doing this? Can you tell?"

Listening wasn't a priority. He had to tell Sam before it was too late. "Don't trust anyone, Sam. Don't trust anyone at all."

Sam kept holding Al's arm. "Listen, can you tell me who's safe and who isn't?"

He grimaced, "God, Sam, it hurts. Make it stop, please."

The bleeding was profound. A ghastly pallor set into the Admiral's features. "I got to get inside your arm. This isn't stopping. A needle shouldn't do all this damage."

The Admiral was back in hell. He felt his arm being turned inside out. The physical and emotional pain showed its horror on his face. He pleaded "Sam, keep me with you. I'm going to be back there. I can't do it yet. We're not ready."

"Al, you need surgery to stop this bleeding. It's impossible without sedating you."

"No, cut the nerve. I don't care. Don't let me be unconscious. They'll get me again. It's too soon." Emily rushed into the room. "They want me now. They're here."

The nurse went to his side, "Admiral, it's me, Emily Petrocelli. You know me, right?"

He wasn't completely sure. His good hand reached toward her and wanted contact. "I don't know. Where's your hand?"

Emily entwined her fingers in his. "Right here. It's me, Admiral."

Nodding, he felt more comfortable. "You're Emily." Looking at Sam he said, "She's Emily."

Sam sighed with relief. "Good. Try to relax. We're going to get this bleeding stopped."

The medical team went into triage mode. The Admiral's arm was becoming almost grotesque in its swelling. Sam was concerned that opening up the arm would let loose a flood that would kill his friend in seconds, but it had to be done. Emily helped place an inflatable pressure bandage over the injured arm and the two prepared their patient for surgery without sedation. A nerve block was planned but neither had much faith in the Admiral's ability to stay with them. Just the loss of blood would be enough to send him to the far side. Another IV sent blood and other fluids into the Admiral and kept him going, barely. It was time to do the work and Sam looked scared.

Her medical instincts made Emily ask, "Dr. Beckett, are you sure we can't sedate him?"

"He says no, that he'll end up like he was after the party in Albuquerque. We can't let him go through that again." Sam stood directly over the Admiral. "Al, you still with me?"

Glazed eyes looked at Sam. "They want me now."

"Well, they can't have you. We're going to take care of you. I promise we'll get rid of them."

In his head, the Admiral heard a band playing _Someone to Watch Over Me_, just like he heard when he left the ballroom in Albuquerque. He felt apart from things around him. He wasn't really there. His body was in another plane of existence or time or fate. It was too late. Lothos grabbed him and it was all going to happen one more time. Sam heard a whisper, "Everything all again."

* * *

Just like the first time, there was no way to tell anyone what was happening, but the people he left behind probably had a better idea this time than they did in Albuquerque. The last time he showed up in this den of nothingness, he met Zoë face to face, but he killed her or at least he damaged her. Closing his eyes against the reality of this horror, he tried to calm his pounding heart. The weakness and frailty in his body seemed gone. This was the Admiral at his mental and physical peak, primed by his captors to go through the agony again. He sucked in a few deep breaths to try and prepare himself for whatever or whoever would be showing up next. 

An unseen Observer from literal hell watched the Admiral attempt to prepare for battle. It made him laugh. "Imbecile." Looking down toward the devil, he said, "Zoë, you were right. He is an insignificant little worm. Too bad, you are dust, Zoë." Tapping his serpent-headed cane on the floor, he danced across the room. "Lothos and I are going to," he snapped his flaming red polished fingers on each syllable, "car-nee-vahl with worm-boy!" Now he was simply talking to entertain himself. "Well, not sure he'll think it's carnival, though. Carnivore? Carnivores eat flesh. That could be fun!" The laugh was giddy, silly and ugly. "Oh, a vat of piranhas nibbling on that pasty skin would be amusing. Ah, well, we shall see." His gnat-like attention span had him spinning and singing, "Back to back, belly to belly. I don't give a damn 'cause I'm stone dead already!"

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Someone to Watch Over Me (c) George and Ira Gershwin 


	11. Recognizing the Void

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

* * *

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

* * *

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter 11 - Recognizing the Void**

Sam felt life fade from his patient. "Damn you, don't die!" Without any hesitation, he opened the Admiral's arm with a single long incision. The blood pumping out pooled around Sam's feet. He and Emily closed the bleeder in record time and both were astounded the Admiral still had life. Emily attached more fluids to the IV pole and increased the push. The blood was being replaced as quickly as possible. After an hour of non-stop meatball surgery Sam and Emily looked at each other and simultaneously sighed.

Sam found his voice first. "He isn't alive because of anything we did." His energy level was near zero, but he still had his anger. "Damn. Damn it! They have him again."

"What?"

"That was the last thing he said to me. They have him. This is the body that was hospitalized after the party in Albuquerque. His soul isn't here." Sam closed his eyes to block out the mess the triage made of the room. "It's all in Al's hands again. I don't know how to help him."

Emily considered the doctor's words carefully. "We just have to keep this body alive and well as possible. When he comes back home, he'll need it."

Sam's eyes blurred, "You're thinking 'when' and I'm thinking 'if.'" He looked down at his blood-soaked clothes. "I should change before I see Beth." Sam checked the IV one last time and took his friend's cold, corpselike hand. "You kick the bucket on me now, old man, and I will never forgive you, understand?"

In his head, Sam heard his friend say, "I'm here, kid. Don't give up yet." He dismissed the words as wishful thinking, but the words were real. The Admiral was beginning his fight anew.

* * *

In his cell of nothingness, the Admiral sat cross-legged with his palm rubbing his aching head. He decided his plan long before the inevitable claw clamped down and drew him back into hell. It was simple. Do nothing. Say nothing. React to nothing, if at all possible. Last time they played into his fears and his love for his children. This time, he would give them nothing except name, rank and serial number. It was a plan even if he thought it was a fruitless exercise. He tried to forget the weakness in his body, the body he left at Quantum Leap. The strength he had now was a hell of a lot more than he was used to lately. He concentrated on remembering he was more capable now than he had been in nearly a year. Throwing away the memory of his physical body was hard, but it was imperative and his concentration brought it to reality.

Behind him, he heard a squeal similar to a handlink. Time to chant his mantra and he kept the words inside his head. Closing his eyes, he focused on, "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37." He repeated it despite the buzzing he heard. It was a voice telling him to stop, but he focused on the words. "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

In better days, some would have said the Admiral's wardrobe was a bit garish, but he had nothing on the ebony man appearing in front of him now. This man looked like a refugee from a Moroccan Big Top. "Admiral Calavicci, this is not prison camp. No one cares about your birthday or your serial number. We barely care about your name."

"Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

The carnival clown paid no mind. "You do say it so well, very official. Military life must agree with you, though I don't understand how. The uniforms are such dreary frocks." He walked around the Admiral, "Although there is something spectacular about the white one the big shots wear with all the pretty ribbons on the pocket. You have one of those, I think. Shame to waste it on someone with such pasty coloring. I don't know how Caucasians manage. Without the strong contrast of skin tone against color, there is really no reason to dress at all, don't you think?"

The Admiral caught a glimpse of the speaker and the walking stick he carried. A serpent's head topped the gold cane. Al remembered his plan. "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

An amused sigh was followed by a freakish giggle. "Okay, you win this one. We will just have to demonstrate that whatever you do it doesn't matter. By the way, my name is Thames."

He strengthened the internal volume and resolve though it seemed like he was losing ground. "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

"Lothos, where shall we take him?"

The room spun just like it had so many months before and Al realized his last instinct about his plan was right – it wasn't going to work. Even so, he kept voicing, "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37," but in his head he gave some advice to himself, "It's all fake. None of it's true."

Thames applauded and giggled again. "Oh I love it. Such a deliciously sinister time."

"Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

"Oh, for this, you're not in the military, not quite yet. I think we're going back more than 50 years. Goodness, you are old, aren't you? This will be a charming beginning. Not too painful, but there's nothing like complete humiliation to start the day, don't you think?"

"Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

* * *

The Calavicci living room was becoming an almost dreaded place to convene. Lately the only conversations taking place there were difficult and very sad. Peri arrived. She sat with Allie. Beth and Donna took up the couch with baby John. Sam reached over from the side chair to take his little son in his arms and find solace in whatever bit of innocence might still exist at the project. Verbena sat across from Sam as he informed them all about the state of Al's health. The fearfulness they felt in Albuquerque the first time returned.

Beth asked, "Do you think his body will survive this?"

The baby played patty cake on his father's face. Sam didn't stop him when he answered, "I can't say for sure. He shouldn't have survived the bullet in his head. He lost 60 of his blood volume and I know we mainlined every kind of blood expander we could get our hands on, but I don't know how he survived with that kind of loss. The injury should never have gotten that bad. Needles don't slip into veins. This doesn't happen. Someone, something else is controlling this. We're going to work hard and keep him alive like last time, but we have to be ready for some of the same stuff."

Nodding, Beth recalled, "Including the violence, too, maybe."

Plodding on despite knowing he was going to break Beth's heart he said, "I'd like to use restraints on him. Nothing too limiting, but he might try something." Realizing there could be confusion, he said, "He being Lothos. Lothos might try to do what happened last time in the hospital."

Beth remembered the phone call telling her that Al had tried to kill a nurse and two guards. She wanted to talk, but words weren't coming. Finally, the fumbling for words was going on too long. All she could say that made any sense was, "I understand. Do what you feel is best."

Verbena wanted Sam to know, "I'm going to monitor all the procedures, Sam. Even if it's only his empty shell, some part of him is there. His mind is still pushing his body to work."

Allie and Peri held hands since Peri arrived an hour earlier, but neither daughter had said much. Allie was still dealing with the fact that she had been used to hurt her father. Peri told the other adults, "Dr. Beeks is right. There is a piece of his soul left. That's the missing piece for Lothos. He needs Dad to give up his entire soul and Dad won't do it."

Allie leaned her head into her sister's shoulder. "Peri and I are next."

Beth, confronting the murder of her husband, now had to contend with the upcoming murder of her two youngest children. "I'm going to be sick." She left the room quickly and Verbena followed.

Though he wanted to stay there and hold onto his little boy forever, Sam knew he had to go back to work. The baby was completely oblivious to the horrors around him and Sam was very happy about that. Little John Albert was kissed, hugged and handed back to his mother. As he started out, he remembered something and went back to Donna. He leaned down and kissed her. "I love you. I got to start telling you that more. You'd think I would have learned by now. Al never leaves a room without telling Beth he loves her. It's a good habit." He walked to the young Calavicci girls. "Your dad will do his best. You know that."

Their chocolate brown eyes looked into Sam's. Filled with fear and hope, they didn't say anything, but both girls smiled and hugged their father's best friend and seemed to have no intention of letting go. He pulled away finally. "I have to get to work. If I need you, I'll call."

In the other room, Verbena was holding onto Beth whose ugly cry sounded like a wounded animal caught in a steel trap. She had been strong for too long. Tears had come before, but never like this. She was dissolving into an emotional mess. Her courage disappeared and she just wanted to be held and rocked by someone who cared. This wasn't typical behavior for her and it surprised Verbena, but the psychiatrist just let the woman cry. There seemed to be no stopping it anyhow. Beth wanted her husband back whole and strong and it was not to be. She wanted her children safe from harm and that was not to be. She wanted to do something that made it all better and that was not to be. The overwhelming evil of the past months was endless and she had no control over any portion of it. This force from hell had her family and she didn't know how to pretend it was going to be all right. She wanted her husband to hold her and be her strength. Without him, she was fading and this was no time to fade. Al would want her to protect the girls, but she didn't know if she had the power.

"My babies are going to die and I can't stop it. I need Al. I can't do this without Al." Verbena gently rubbed Beth's back. "He's going to die because of this project."

"It's not the project."

She slammed a fist down on the night table. "The hell it isn't. That's like saying it wasn't the war in Vietnam that made him MIA. Everything this project hoped to be is exactly why he's dying now." The anger was misplaced and she knew it, but who cared? "I want to hate the project for what it did to our lives, but then I remember those times when he would come home after a hard leap and he'd be exhausted. His whole body would be defeated, but he'd get this look on his face that he and Sam had done something important, valuable. The first thing he'd say was 'Are the girls alright?' and they were. Then he'd ask if I was okay. Al used to say the devil was after his soul since the day he was born and I would tell him that was silly. Now, I don't think so. How could God abandon him to this Lothos? Better question is why?"

Verbena had asked herself the same questions. There was no answer and she assumed Beth really didn't expect one. "What would you like me to do?"

Sucking in her pain, she said, "Go stay with Al. You call me if anything happens, the nightmares, anything. I need to be with Allie and Peri." She took in a few deep breaths, centered herself and walked back to her children.

Back in the living room, she saw her girls still next to each other with no intention of letting the other one out of her site. Peri held John and was rocking him to sleep. "Gonna take a sentimental journey. Gonna set my mind at ease." Beth sat next to her youngest daughter and put her arm around her. Peri kept singing. "Why did I decide to roam? Got to take a sentimental journey, sentimental journey home."

The baby was asleep and Peri handed him to his mother. Donna said, "Peri, your voice is incredible. I love hearing you sing."

Beth added, "Your father loved that song."

Allie pulled away, "Why did you say 'loved,' like past tense?"

Embarrassed by the gaffe, Beth said nothing. Donna spoke up for her. "It's just a phrase. It means nothing, Allie. It means nothing," but she didn't quite believe it.

* * *

Sentimental Journey © Les Brown, Bud Green and Benjamin Homer 


	12. Name, Rank and Serial Number

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

* * *

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author. 

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** The following chapter presents a child in a violent, physically and sexually abusive situation. This incident is based on the experiences of a friend of the author and reflects her actual memory. If you are squeamish or choose not to read through the situation, please feel free to skip the chapter. The final paragraph in chapter 12 will allow you a bit of information that will make understanding the subsequent chapter a bit easier. Thank you.

* * *

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter Twelve - Name, Rank and Serial Number**

The dank basement was dark and familiar, but it was an old memory for the Admiral, one he dreaded in some ways even more than Vietnam. Chains and whips peppered the walls. A small grill in the back glowed with hot coals. From behind him, he heard an ugly male voice shout, "I told you. Strip, now. You may be pretty, but not that pretty." Al just stood still not wanting to react to or even look at the source of the voice. The man who yelled at him grabbed his arm, picked him up and threw him across the room onto a cot dirty with remnants of other people's lives. "Do what you're told. Get those clothes off now!"

He heard himself whimper and knew how he had to answer. "Yes sir." The sound of his own voice was startling. It was the voice of a small boy who hadn't reached puberty. The memory of the room flew back into his head. Staring down at his hands, he saw the small slender fingers of a child. "No."

The man snatched Al by the shirt collar and dragged him to his feet. "If I got to get you naked, boy, you're going to regret it. Understand?" The terror of childhood experiences flooded back and he had no control over the puking. It just started and he sprayed the man. It continued as he tried to call on the years of effort that helped him hide that day in a dark hole of his psyche, but here it was in his face again. Nothing that he did now would change his past. All he hoped was this repetition of the day any chance for a childhood died would somehow be more manageable, but knowing the evil in Lothos, he doubted it. One last clutching in his gut spewed out the last of whatever was in his stomach.

"God damn you!" He dropped the child Al and frantically pulled off his soiled shirt. The boy started for the only door he could see, but before he even got near, it opened and another man entered.

"Geez, Howard, what is that stench?"

"The little bastard threw up on me."

Al had nowhere to go. He was 11 years old and this was a resurrection of his introduction to beatings and rape. Lothos may have thought that he would crack under this recollection. This time around, he was an adult imprisoned in his own child body. A veteran of Vietnamese torture, this time, he knew he didn't have to follow their orders. He knew that they didn't have any way to kill his sister. Empty threats didn't matter.

Howard yanked Al's hair. "Apologize, you little prick."

Al's little boy voice sharply answered, "No."

The man who blocked his exit loomed over the child, at least six and a half feet tall. Al barely came up to his belt buckle. With a shake of his head he said, "The kid said no."

Defiantly, Al looked over at him and spoke louder, "No!"

The new man ordered, "Chain him."

At age eleven, Al was the size of a skinny eight year old. As much as his adult brain wanted to get away, his small body was no competition for the grown men who had him. Howard took a fistful of the boy's hair in his hand and dragged him to a platform in the opposite corner. Every muscle in the child's body fought against his captor, but fighting didn't help. In a few minutes, Al had manacles around his ankles and wrists, his foot chained to a loop embedded in the floor. There was no escape, nowhere to go. Howard told him, "I get some payback time now, pretty baby. Give me a few minutes to get this puke off of me and then you'll see how sorry a pretty boy can be."

The new man walked over to the child. "You blew it now, baby. Howard is not happy and when he's not happy, I got to tell you, you're not happy." A twisted smile was frighteningly reminiscent of the look he had seen on Thame's face. "Yeah, let's get ready." Despite trying to keep the new man at bay, Al was stripped and left curled up on the floor trying to hide out in plain view. He didn't know what else to do. His adult mind now had to suffer through this humiliation and the pain. It almost felt worse now as an adult. The child had no choice, but he was an Admiral, a leader, he should find a way out of this.

Howard came back in as naked as Al. The new man was setting up a camera. Howard snapped at him, "God damn, Frank. You taking pictures of this?"

"Yeah, you do good work."

"I thought you were doing film."

"These will be easier to sell. Not a whole lot of places willing to offer tickets to snuff with kids."

Howard laughed. "If we don't have to snuff him, then we can get a few days work out of him before we send him home."

Frank tested the lighting, "Not sure he's going home."

"Hurry up. This little prick needs some punishment." Grabbing hair seemed to be a favorite activity and again Al was lifted from the floor by his brown curls. "You will beg for my forgiveness after every stroke. Do you understand?" Al said nothing. "Do you understand?" Again, he gave no answer.

Frank laughed again, "He's got a bug up his ass, doesn't he?"

"It's going to be more than a bug unless he answers me."

Knowing he had no option but to suffer through whatever Howard and Frank wanted to do Al started, "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

Howard opened a box at the far side of the room and came back to the child who kept chanting, "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37." An array of weapons lay in the box and Howard surveyed the possibilities before he decided on a particularly villainous cat-o-nine-tails studded with metal brads.

Frank's face turned suddenly worried. "He's too small for that. You'll rip his skin right off."

"Just shoot pictures. These will sell big."

"Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

The defiance infuriated him. Howard had to teach the boy who was in control. "You will beg my forgiveness with each stroke. Do you understand?"

"Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37," and Al stood, turning his back to his torturers.

"Shit, Howard, just start. These are stills. Let him blubber what he wants to. We got to kill him, so who cares?"

The first blow cracked across his back with such power it knocked the boy to the floor. "Apologize, prick."

"Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37." Time after time, the whip came down tearing more skin from his child's body. Each time the boy kept tears inside and said, "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

Howard abandoned the whip and looked into his box for something else to bring the boy under his control. "You little dumbass. You think you get to die today and this is over." The tool he wanted was in his hand. Going to his prey he said, "You will die, but not today. It's going to take awhile."

"Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

* * *

The infirmary had total access to Ziggy, so Sam opted to set up his work in the office right outside Al's hospital room. He wanted to be close. Verbena came down and took up residence at the Admiral's side. He was deathly still until he started mumbling. She couldn't understand a word. "Sam, come here." 

Sam saw and heard the same thing Verbena did. The Admiral would flinch in pain and then this mumbling. "Something is going on wherever he is. They're doing something to him."

"I don't understand. Doing something?"

His being knew the process, but how that happened was beyond him. "Verbena, they're sending him into old memories."

Even psychology is a science and science wanted black and white answers. "Like a leap?"

"No, he can't change anything. It's a memory that he is reliving now. It's being twisted into something new, though. I can't explain it, Verbena. I know what it is and I have no clue why I know it."

"You're a part of each other, Sam." Verbena looked into the determined and oddly empty eyes of her friend. "Sam, you and Al exchanged mesons and neurons. We can see it in your tests. There has been a change in both of you." He was shaking his head. "You can deny it if you want, but you know things now because you are a part of Al. We need to use that to get him home. I can't help but think he's still with us only because you're here."

"Why didn't I understand all this back in Albuquerque? Maybe I could have done something."

There wasn't an answer for him, but she had to try. "No one knew anything back in Albuquerque. Both of you felt off, but neither of you knew why." The Admiral started speaking again."Do you understand what he's saying?"

They both tried to make words out of the noises they heard. "I don't have a clue, Verbena,"

From above came Ziggy's voice. "He's stating his name, rank and serial number."

Sam asked, "Do you know where he is?"

"Doctor, if you're asking if I know what's happening to him at this moment, then the answer is yes. However, I cannot reach him. Nor can you."

"Can Allie or Peri?"

The sadness in Ziggy's voice held a melancholy that reflected not only concern, but fatigue and despair. "In this situation, I don't think it wise to involve his children. The trauma to them and to the Admiral would be devastating."

Verbena looked at Sam. "My God, what are they doing to him?"

Sam rested his hand on Al's shoulder. "Answer the lady, Ziggy. What are they doing?"

"You won't let this rest, will you, Dr. Beckett?" Ziggy sighed. "The Admiral is being tortured and raped."

The statement threw Verbena. "You mean he's in Vietnam being tortured? He wasn't raped there, was he?"

Ziggy whispered, "It's not Vietnam."

Sam recalled Beth's confession of Al's past so many months earlier. "This is when he was in that foster home, isn't it?"

"His foster parents sold him to these men. The Admiral's adult mind is inside his body as a child. This is why he is counting on his name, rank and serial number. It's a method he's using to focus away from the pain and, unfortunately in his mind, the disgrace, just as he did in Vietnam." Ziggy paused, "Dr. Beeks, you're unaware of the Admiral's history regarding the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. I am sorry to have brought it to your attention in this fashion."

Verbena's fury needed concentration to keep down. "I should have been told!"

"I didn't even know until a few months ago." Sam tried to appease her. "Al never told anyone other than Beth."

Ziggy joined in, "That's true, Dr. Beeks. Even I had no inkling he had gone through this and viewing it now is terribly difficult."

Sam's ears perked up. "What do you mean 'viewing it'? Are you able to give us visual contact?"

"Not literal pictures, but I have contact through him to Lothos and I can decipher the code to replicate an image of the Admiral only, no audio or his surroundings. When one of the others there makes physical contact with the Admiral, you'll see that person as well."

Verbena wanted information. "Then patch it through. I need to see this."

"I don't think you do."

"Ziggy, when the Admiral comes back to us, he has to have someone who knows, whose seen what he's gone through. Let us help him."

"**_I_** will have seen it all."

"Look Ziggy, I know you care about the Admiral and you can hold conversations with us, but you're a computer, not a human being. The Admiral might be a bit anxious talking about his experiences with a computer. Lothos is a computer."

Ziggy's programming shattered all rules of her abilities. Her heart broke. "I'm not like Lothos," her voice saddened, "but I understand what you mean. I'll feed the visual to your terminal, Dr. Beckett. I don't believe it wise to feed it into the Admiral's room at the moment. Even though we believe the Admiral to be unaware of these surroundings, we can't be positive."

"Good thinking, Ziggy."

"Thank you, Dr. Beeks. Perhaps, I have some understanding of the human heart after all."

* * *

The boy accepted his punishment without straying from his repeated phrase. The whipping bloodied his back from neck to heels. Each time the weapon made contact he flinched and his voice broke, but still he repeated, "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37." 

Frank was laughing at Al's rebellion. "Little baby bastard won't give into you this time, Howard. You're losing your touch." He laughed harder and Howard's anger flared into venomous killing instinct.

The torturer walked over to the coals. Iron brands were heating and Al knew he'd be adding a new scar to his body. The end of the poker was flaming red. The child wanted to scream for pity, but the adult inside kept saying, "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

The villain brought the brand to the chained and beaten child. He back-handed a fist into the boy's face. Al fell onto his sliced and bleeding back. The wail was involuntary, but he found his mantra quickly, "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

A bare foot slammed into the boy's gut. A hand reached down and clamped his neck. The brand was inches from the boy's face. Al was caught and nothing could change what was about to happen. "You think you're pretty and we won't ruin your face. You understand me now, don't you. I don't care what you say or how much you say it, you aren't pretty anymore."

Verbena stared at the torture coming at the boy. "Oh God, Sam, what's he going to do?"

Sam and Verbena watched the brand stab onto the side of the child's face. Al screamed in agony they could not hear. The wound was grotesque and distorted the beautiful face of the little boy Admiral. Howard pulled the poker away and then impaled it through Al's thin chest.

Verbena screamed and turned away burying her face in Sam's shoulder. Sam held her, but continued to stare at his friend's hell, his mouth hanging open. Having leaped for over ten years, Sam believed he was wise in all the evils the Devil could create. He was wrong.

The image flipped off the monitor. "Ziggy, bring that back now!"

"I'm sorry, Dr. Beckett. The image is gone. I can only assume Lothos has sent the Admiral to another location. It will take time for me to find him."

A terrifying picture flashed in Sam's mind. He pushed Verbena away and rushed to his patient in the next room. A blistered, oozing burn was on his face. "Damn." Pulling back the sheet, he found a burned hole in his chest. "Damn it." He slipped his arm under the Admiral's back and pulled out a bloodied hand. It was connecting for him finally and the concept momentarily shook his belief in God. A slip of a moment later, it returned with a prayer from the center of his being, "Please, God, no more!"

* * *


	13. All the Difference

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

* * *

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

* * *

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter 13 - All the Difference**

The Admiral was pulled from his childhood hell and arrived back in the holding cell that he had come to think of as Lothos' Waiting Room. He'd been thrown and dropped there, his face to the floor. Thames walked up and kicked him in the side. "Who the hell do you think you are? That wasn't nearly as much fun as it was supposed to be."

The burn on his face and the hole in his chest weakened him physically, but his internal resolve strengthened.Rolling onto his back Al smiled and said, "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

The next kick was to the Admiral's head. "Lothos is not happy. Why do you insist on this chanting? It's one of my top ten turn-offs along with men who sweat too much." Another poke into Al's side brought a grunt of pain. "Maybe, just maybe, you liked dancing with the big boys?" The smile on his face twisted into a perversity. "I bet you did! That's the problem!" He applauded with his iniquitous assumption. "Little Albert liked it! You love the masochism. I knew we had something in common."

"Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

"Ugh! I'm bored, bored, bored, bored, and more bored. This sending you into the past doesn't do anything for me. You don't seem to care so much what happens to you." Mumbling to no one in particular, he added, "It's an annoying habit in a handful of humans." The cane had to rap the side of Al's head again. "You and that Beckett thing seem to be bothered with that nasty habit." He tilted his head to a low corner of the space. His eye focused there for a fraction of a second too long.

The gray spot had been noticed before, but not considered important until now. Back in the endless corridor, the Admiral thought the gray spot an illusion, a floater in his aging eye, but now it was here. "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37." The words were spoken to cover his noticing the connection between Thames and what the Admiral thought might be the portal to Lothos. "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

Looking directly at the gray spot, Thames smiled. "That might be good. He did," the next words made his lip curl, "love her supposedly. Although how anyone could love that kind of stupidity is beyond me."

"Albert Calavicci, Admiral, 15 June 1934, serial number 33-39-37."

"Keep it up. It doesn't matter anymore." Thames made his mistake a second time. The clown sought out the gray spot Al was monitoring. "I can? Thank you." The multi-colored dervish made his way toward the Admiral and pointed his cane toward the spot Al decided was the source of the terror being inflicted upon him and his family. "Lothos just doesn't like you. How perfectly marvelous for me!" The villain pointed his devil hand and lightning flashed from his fingertips and into the damaged chest of Admiral Calavicci.

The jolt sent the Admiral soaring across the room, slamming his head against the wall. Electricity ran through his body. His nerves started frying inside him and the seizure that overtook him rattled his bones and there seemed no end, no end at all.

* * *

Sam and Emily worked on the burn on Al's face and the hole in his chest. The stripes on his back were superficial and could wait. Emily debrided the burn while Sam attended to the hole in the chest. No major arteries were torn, but the wound was deep, tearing into the lung from front to back. The burn on his cheek was third degree and cleaning away the dead tissue threatened to expose bone on the gaunt Admiral's face. 

After Al's encounter with his childhood, Verbena summoned Beth and her girls to the infirmary. They waited in the outer office while the doctors worked. Beth's fatigue was desperate. Allie and Peri still were nearly catatonic in the flatness of their expressions. It was as if their father's situation was draining their souls from their bodies and perhaps it was. The two were tied to their father's predicament. They didn't feel his pain, but both intuitively knew what was happening to him. They now knew his deepest, ugliest secret and it was more than they needed to know.

Allie's eyes closed and Peri held the young girl in her arms. The tears were soft, but definite. Peri's tears started soon after. Beth asked, "What's happening? Can you tell?"

Peri told her, "It will be over soon."

"What will?"

Allie ran her hand over her face just as her father did and told her mother, "Daddy is going to try and kill Lothos. It will be over soon."

Sam walked into the room looking beaten by the unending task of maintaining a body filled with injuries occurring in some nether world. "He's stable again. The burn is bad. If he gets an infection it's going to be very difficult." He took Beth's hands in his. "I can't imagine what you're going through, but I need you now. Al needs you. I have to get back to Ziggy. There's not much time left here and whatever we're going to do, it has to be soon. Thing is, Emily needs help caring for Al. I need you to be a nurse. Can you do it?"

Beth had two children in trouble, a husband dying, and now was asked to turn professional and detached. It seemed an impossible task. Peri told her, "We're fine, Mom. Gia and Toni should be here real soon."

Navy training never really goes away. Drawing from her military schooling, Beth drew in a deep breath, kissed her girls and said, "Would you hand mea set of scrubs?"

Emily called from inside Al's room, "Dr. Beckett!"

Everyone flew into the Admiral's room and witnessed a horrific grand mal seizure, Al's body arched, his head banging over and over again. The bandage on his chest spotted with a growing stain of blood. The covering on his burned face became a useless bit of fabric, and more blood dripped down his neck.

Beth turned to the girls, "Is this it? Is this your father trying to kill Lothos?"

Their faces were almost passive at the site of their father's torment. Peri shook her head, "No, Mom, not yet. They're still playing with him. This is more torture."

The word that spewed from her child was stunning. "Torture?"

Seizures had to play out. Sam ordered medication into the IV already in the Admiral's body. "Listen, Beth, I can't do anything here that you and Emily can't take care of. I need to get to the Control Room."

Allie took his elbow. "We'll go with you. You'll need us."

Beth panicked, "No, you're staying with me. I can't lose you. I can't lose more of you!"

Earlier, their faces were almost blank. Now they conveyed classic Calavicci conviction. "Mom, Allie and I have to be there." Peri put her hands on her father's seizing body. "You can't stop anything from happening to us anyhow. It's up to Dad. We can't help here. You know that."

Another phrase of their father's; "You know that." Both the girls were using his mannerisms now. It was like the Admiral infiltrating their minds. Beth's heart wanted them safe and with her, but safe wasn't always the best thing. Al taught her that lesson decades earlier. The first time was when he proposed and she hesitated because all her friends told her he was too wild. The handsome young Ensign had to convince her that being safe led to disappointing compromises. There was a poem by Emerson that he used to quote and she spoke it out loud to her girls, "'Tis man's perdition to be safe w_hen for the truth he ought to die." The words gave her courage to follow the truth. "Go on." They both kissed their mother, all three hoping it wasn't the last time they'd be seeing each other alive. "I love you. Tell your father I love him and I'm waiting for you and him to come home again." _

_Sam and the girls left Beth with Emily trying to minimize the damage Lothos was doing. Beth's nursing skills were sharp and she didn't wait to ask. She did the work she knew best and together she and Emily kept the shell in front of them alive._

Sam, Allie and Peri charged into the Control Room. Ziggy's lights were flashing more than Sam had ever witnessed. "What's going on?"

"The Admiral is in what we would call the 'Waiting Room' at Lothos' location. He is currently enduring electrical input of a severely damaging nature."

"No joke. It's called a seizure and we know. He's having one now." Sam looked into the control panel. "Can you center me on him?"

"You want to leap?"

It wasn't what Sam meant, but if it could be done . . . "Can I?"

"Of course, you can, but the question is should you." Ziggy didn't want to deal with both her creators dying in this battle with her alter-ego. "I'd advise against it. I might not be able to retrieve you."

"But, can you center me on Al?"

"That is also unadvisable. Please Dr. Beckett, your involvement will be key, but not in the manner in which you or I current understand."

Sam didn't like the set-up. It mandated that he do nothing, but follow instructions from a computer that he supposedly controlled. His fist pounded the wall behind him. "You could leap me there, if you wanted to."

Allie and Peri spoke in unison, "I could be there."

Peri pushed ahead of her sister. "I'm older, Uncle Sam. Send me. Then you can leap into me. I'm bigger and stronger."

The younger one didn't like the comparison. "You are not stronger. You're just bigger."

Ziggy had no interest in subjecting either young woman to a session in the Accelerator. "There is no one to leap into except the Admiral and I will not do that. Dr. Beckett, do not leap anyone. I can't promise you can be retrieved."

"One of us needs to get to him."

"Once again, Dr. Beckett, it is _you_ that wants to be there. The Admiral does not need your presence. He needs to be left alone to complete his task." There was only one way to keep Sam where he needed to be. "You can watch the situation on the monitor, but in a few moments, I will need your assistance to input code. Please access RC2-102366Prepare for the Admiral's escape attempt."

The last time Sam wanted to interfere with Ziggy, the Admiral wasn't able to kill Lothos. No mistakes could be allowed this time. "Give me a visual on him."

"There is nothing to see at the moment. The Admiral is having a seizure there just as he is up in the Infirmary."

"Get me the visual, damn it!" Ziggy projected the image of the Admiral. "Can you show anything other than the Admiral? Can I see any surroundings?"

"I can only draw an image of the Admiral. Nothing else will be visible unless it comes in contact with the Admiral's skin."

Allie pleaded, "Send me in as Observer. I can let you know what's happening." Sam wanted the information Allie could get, but not at the risk of her life. "The Observer can always get back, Uncle Sam. It's not like leaping."

"Send us both in like last time. The two of us can observe. They'll know I'm there. They don't see Allie. They see me. If we both show up, Dad will fight back like last time."

It made sense. Observing was not the same as leaping. "Ziggy, will it help if the girls observe?"

The screen on the monitor went blank. "Not at this moment, Doctor. I've lost contact with the Admiral. The seizure ended and he has disappeared. Until they begin some new torment, I'm unable to lock on his location."

Sam's head bowed defeated. "Did we lose him?"

"If you are asking me if he's dead, I would assume that he is not. When he dies, Dr. Beckett, you will know it, as part of him lives in you. I will know it as well. Without the ability to access his mesons and neurons external to my processors I will cease to function."

"I don't need a drama queen now! You'll still function."

"But not at the capacity for which I was designed. Lothos has seen to that."

Losing visual contact with the Admiral was disconcerting, but it also allowed the trio to breathe a little more slowly and deeply. It was a hope that the end of the seizure brought some respite. Sam wanted to know, "What's happening in the Infirmary?"

"The Admiral's seizure has ended. Mrs. Calavicci and Commander Miglore are assessing the additional damage to the Admiral. He is bleeding again from both his chest and the burn."

"What's his condition?"

"Critical as to life."

Critical condition was one thing. Critical as to life was another. It wasn't a matter of minimizing scars or worrying about any other plastic reconstructions in the future. The only goal now was maintaining life. Being pretty flew out the window. Sutures closed up problems with no thought of the after effects. Those would be dealt with when life wasn't edging too close to the precipice. Sam hated explaining critical as to life to the Admiral's children, but they asked and there was nothing to do but tell the truth. They reacted like Calaviccis. Both found Al's strength inside their hearts and faced the upcoming events with concentration and a belief in their own power to decimate the villain holding their father. To be honest, Sam drew renewed spirit from them. The idea that Al might lose the battle, and the war as well, flew out whatever opening it could find in the underground compartment.

Ziggy rattled off code and Sam followed orders. He wasn't used to having someone or in this case, something, tell him what to do, but by now** he** realized he was the only tool the Admiral had. The end result was important, not his ego and Sam easily set his own needs aside to help his dear friend and mentor.

Numbers and codes flew into Ziggy's main processor. Allie and Peri sat to the side. Peri did the only thing she thought could possibly help. Her beautiful alto sang softly, but with absolute command. "I wish I could be like a bird in the sky. How sweet it would be if I found that I could fly."

The song continued as Sam input the code. He remembered it was a favorite of Al's, especially that particular verse. Al was born to fly and intimately know the abandon of freefall from space.

Ziggy was still unable to locate the Admiral. The dictated code was input as far as they could go. The Admiral's location was necessary to do more. For a fraction of a second, it was okay to breathe and not think it an indulgence taking too much time

Peri's voice diminished in volume. "Then I'd sing 'cause I'd know what it means to be free."

The sad song of Perigrina Calavicci broke Sam's already bleeding heart. "Ziggy, can I take a short break? I want to get some fresh air."

"Please don't be gone long. I can't predict when I will locate the Admiral."

"I have to get out of here for a few seconds." Sam slipped out to don a Fermi suit under his clothing. If the possibility arose, he meant to be ready.

* * *

A steel cold settled around him. His mind seemed scrambled, thoughts having trouble connecting together. Concepts flew through his awareness as single words, nothing more. Words existed, but he was like little Helen Keller, knowing they had substance, but he was damned if he knew what it was. He could see long fleshy things attached to his shoulders. Arms? The word didn't seem to have meaning, but it made sense. So did the word **hands. **He had hands with these worm-like things at the ends of them. They moved when he told them to, but it was weird. Thought processes were "the road not taken and sorry he could not travel both," he took the one less traveled. At least he had those words – making no sense, but somehow, "all the difference." Words. He needed words, but he had words, didn't he? Words would bring him back. He saw no destination, but words. He needed words. Eyes closed, rolling his head from side to side, words were the key. Find the words. Words to bring him home. Words he already knew. He knew words, a lot of them. They hid inside the shell of his brain and he hunted them down. The first one spoken had no meaning. He said it aloud. "Albert." It sounded odd, but it had importance. "Albert, my name is Albert." It was his name, but the word "name" was meaningless. "Name? Name. Name. Name rank. Name rank. Name rank. Admiral?" 

The garish enemy circled the fallen hero. The serpent-headed gold cane poked and prodded at the Admiral's body. The emptiness of thought didn't understand the bothersome taps. Only those words. He wanted more words. "Albert, Admiral, Albert, Admiral." Another tap, another tap. "Albert, Admiral, Calavicci, Albert, Admiral, 33." More words. No sense to them. "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, number 33." Poke. Tap. Smack. Pain. It hurt. The cane punched harder. "Albert M. Calavicci, Admiral, number 33." The colors poking him made sounds. Words. He was saying words. Words were ideas. Words would bring him back. "Albert Calavicci, Admiral, serial number 33-39-37. Albert Calavicci, Admiral, serial number 33-39-37," and his mind exploded into a wealth of knowledge, experience, emotions, memories, loves gained, loves lost, his current hell. He was back. The cavern that was his mind filled and flooded over. He was back, but Thames didn't need to know. He wanted Thames to believe he had returned to the emptiness, "33-39-37, Lieutenant, Albert Calavicci number 33-39." He batted at the jabs from the cane like he was swatting at mosquitoes. "Albert Cal vicci, Lieutenant, 37. Albert Vicci, 33-3, Lieutenant, 39."

"He's a lieutenant now?" Thames began to laugh. "Regressing. How sweet." Finding the gray spot near the floor, Thames spoke, "I told you, Lothos. He is incapable of getting away this time. That drab, silly little brain is now a lump of old meatloaf."

"Lieutan, 9."

"I don't know what's more fun, watching him twitch or watching his brain disappear." The gold cane struck the side of the Admiral's head. "It's absolutely hollow." Another whack against the Admiral's head, this one harder and the Admiral had to swallow the sharpness of the pain. "A Grand Canyon of nothing. Yum! Yum!!"

Stumbling through the sounds, the Admiral mumbled, "Ber, Ber, Ber, b, b, b," and then stopped talking. He laid still and quietly scanned the room for the gray spot. He found it and quickly turned away. Thames didn't need to know he had seen something of potential value. He tried to look as vacant and empty as possible. They may let him lay there if they thought he was a blank thing having no potential. He wanted and needed the time. The plan required judicious consideration. And the gray spot emboldened, increasing in size and gaining a peculiar depth.

* * *

**The Road Not Taken** © Robert Frost  
**I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Fre**e © Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas 


	14. A Time to Leap

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

* * *

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

* * *

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter Fourteen - A Time to Leap  
**

In the Infirmary, Beth, Verbena, and Emily pulled Al's body back from death. He was quiet, breathing regularly, his heart beating with a steady rhythm. Beth adjusted an IV. "How are we on whole blood?"

"We're out. All we have left are expanders. He's used everything we have."

Knowing her medical skills, Verbena looked into Al's chart and said. "You two are better than I am with this kind of medicine. I'll coordinate a drive for donors." Scanning the chart, she found the information she wanted. "The Admiral's a universal recipient, AB positive. Anyone on staff can donate."

From behind her Verbena heard, "I'll donate now," and "Me too." The remaining Calavicci daughters had arrived and put themselves first on the list of blood donors for their father. After kissing their mother and father, they followed Emily into another room where they would begin the drive of donors for the Admiral's life.

Beth pulled a chair next to the body she was trying to keep alive. It looked like Al, but she finally admitted the soul she loved wasn't there. However, she came to realize their love was not purely a matter of souls blessed by finding each other. Beth loved his curly hair, his dark eyes, his gravelly voice, the way he danced with her, the warmth of his face next to hers, the scent of the light aftershave he used for almost a decade now, the feel of his hands on her body as he caressed her in the quiet private of their bedroom. Souls had their place and his was the most magnificent soul she knew, but there was this actual physical being lying in front of her. She knew their bodies were as much a part of their passion as their interlaced hearts.

"Please come home my love, please come home." It was not simply a plea for his life. Beth feared that if his body died and his soul survived, Al would exist nowhere and she would never know if he found peace. Right now, the best she hoped for was keeping his body intact so he could come home to die whole and complete. Al told them all he had to die for this hell to end and she wanted to be sure that he died in her arms. That gift wasn't going to be denied him as long as she was his nurse, his wife and his true love.

Toni came back into the room. "Gia is still being bled." She took her father's hand. "What's happening?"

"It's like he told us. He said, 'everything all again,' and we didn't know what he meant. Seems so simple to figure out now." Toni scratched at the band-aid on her arm. "Are you okay?"

"Just an itch." She tried to smile, but the tears starting to crawl down her cheeks belied any sense of good feeling. "Where are Peri and Allie?"

"With Uncle Sam in the Control Room. They're trying to work this from the other side. Your sisters might be needed to help out."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"Of course it is, but I can't stop any of this. I certainly can't stop any of you. You're all like your father, stubborn and single-minded." Beth stopped. She didn't want to sound like she blamed their struggle on Al or her girls. "And if the four of you turn out as well as your father, then we will have succeeded beyond all our dreams for you."

"It's alright Mom. You don't have to watch what you say around us. We're all grown up now." She played with her father's fingers. "He's lost a lot more weight. I thought he was putting it back on."

"He did for awhile, but now he's down to 116 pounds."

"Damn, even I weigh more than that and NASA says I'm too skinny." Toni smiled again, but this time it was real, "I'm going to get heavier pretty soon though." She looked back down at her father. "God, I wish he was here. He's going to be a grandfather again in about seven months."

Beth's instinct to protect came out, "Why are you donating blood? Did you tell Verbena you're pregnant?"

"Gee Mom, I'm glad you're happy."

"Baby, you know I am." She hugged her daughter. "Maybe we'll get a girl this time." Leaning down, she whispered into Al's ear, "Did you hear that, honey? Another grandchild. Another baby for you to play with." Beth placed her face next to her husband's hoping to feel the warmth. She took care not to touch the burned jaw line. Lothos might inflict pain on him, but she would not. "Come home, Al."

"Can he hear you?"

She shook her head, "I haven't a clue. Sometimes, I think he's lost already and then part of me has this feeling that he's not gone yet. It's like when he was MIA. Part of me said he was dead, but another part told me he was alive. Same thing when his spacecraft was in trouble." She flashed to the time she found out she would not get an opportunity to talk to her astronaut husband whose craft betrayed him and his crew. There would be no good-bye, no 'I love you,' nothing at all. "I've been through this too much." Realizing that Toni was there for the NASA debacle, she added, "So have you and your sisters. You never knew from day to day if he would come home."

"Remember Sarah Jensen? She was Gia's and my friend when we were in high school. Her dad was a CPA. When we were sophomores, Mr. Jensen went to work one morning and was killed in a car crash. You never know from day to day if any of us will come home. Dad was just presented with unique circumstances that made it more unusual for us."

Beth smiled. "I thought Gia was the one who could wrap words around her finger."

"Mom, I think I'm going to the Control Room. I don't know what I can do there, but I do know computers better than Peri and Allie. Maybe Uncle Sam could use a hand. Gia can stay with you and Dad."

Of the four girls, Toni was the one at age six Al pegged as NASA material. He always said she was his astronaut in training. Her skill with computers was considerable and she felt more like she was contributing by helping out in the only way she knew. "Keep an eye on the little ones." It had been years since Beth used that phrase with one of the twins. It usually was met with an "aw gee" shrug and a deep sigh. This time, Toni looked her mother in the eye and promised her sisters would be home later.

Beth sat back down and tended to her wounded war hero. She begged him one more time, "Please come home, Al. Please come home."

Toni wended her way through the Prokect maze. She found herself at the Control Room and requested entry. Ziggy opened the door immediately. Sam was glad to see her. He knew her skill at computers. She would be an asset if he had to follow through on his plan to Leap. She might be able to handle some basic functions with Ziggy. 

Allie ran to her big sister. "Is Gia here too?"

"Yeah, sweetie. She's staying with Mom."

Peri joined in the embrace. "I'm glad you're here. Dad needs all of us this time."

"You both okay?" They nodded. "Good. I love you." She kissed them both and walked to Sam's side. "You okay?"

"Never better." He smiled at her and she knew it was a complete lie. "How are your computer skills? Want a lesson?"

"What are you planning to do?"

"I don't know. When things get moving, everything happens very fast, sometimes too fast for one person. I'd like you to be here."

"Wouldn't Aunt Donna be a better choice? She knows this hardware and software a lot better than I do."

Sam didn't want to risk bringing Donna into the Control Room. If he needed to go through with his plan, his wife would do everything she could to stop him. He purposely kept her out of the mix on this vital operation. She was home with John and that's where he hoped she would stay. "John needs her. I need you."

"That's why I came. I don't know what I can do, but this is my bailiwick. Gia is staying with Mom. My sister still has her nursing credentials."

"Good. Your dad may need help."

Conversation was stilted and used just to cover the silences. Any kind of noise seemed better than unending quiet in anticipation of the storm that lay ahead. None knew what the next struggle was going to be. They were in a war, surrounded by the enemy, with no idea where or when the next battle would start. They knew only that Admiral Al Calavicci was on the front line and he would be the only one who could lead them to victory.

Ziggy requested some modifications to code Sam had already written. The doctor showed Toni what to do and she quickly acclimated to the assignment. If the situation demanded, Sam would give her the controls.

Peri kept singing softly, sometimes barely audible, sometimes more full, but always giving the room a sense of purpose. The songs varied. Most were plaintive, but she sang out full on a gospel song her pilot father always liked. "When I die, hallelujah, bye and bye, I'll fly away."

Up in the infirmary, some of the whole blood Verbena collected was now replacing the blood the Admiral had lost so violently and his body began to regain some color. While the situation was quiet, Emily was making another attempt to close up damage from the burn. Gia prepared a table where they would find all the items they needed for the next assault. Beth comforted the body in front of her praying they would be able to keep him among the living and that his living would be good and not just the breathing existence of the shell still at the complex.

The clock on the wall made no sound, but they all wondered how long it would be until the siege began. Time moved slowly in some ways, but then no one wanted it to move swiftly. Time was the element they had no jurisdiction over and the element that held most importance. Without enough time, the Admiral's body would die. Too much time and the Admiral would be tortured over and over again. Time was the thing. It was odd to realize that while Quantum Leap allowed man to leap around in time, no one could ever control the cosmic stuff no matter how hard they tried and God knows they tried.

* * *

Thames seated himself on a chaise lounge in the middle of the room eating cherries and grapes one at a time delighting in the sweet juices dribbling down his chin. Al created a repetitive walking pattern, appearing dazed and devoid of thought. It gave him access to viewing everything he wanted to see. The chaise was approachable from any number of angles. That was good, but even better - the gray spot never moved at all. It remained tucked down in about the same place it always was when the Admiral noticed it. This was good. Even though he didn't know what it was, he knew it was the soul of evil; somehow, it was Lothos.

Thames was the wildcard. The guy was a loose cannon in Lothos' organization, but Al saw him as the key to ending it all. His plan was going to have to start soon, before they started up with him again. There were still more horrible events in his life to relive and he didn't like redundancy. The façade of his emptied mind wasn't going to last too much longer.

His march around the room put him into the position he wanted. The gray spot was directly in his path. Thames' serpent-headed stick leaned against the chaise and Al saw it within arm's length.

"You know, Admiral, this is getting boring. How much longer can you go in circles? Round and round and round. You're making me dizzy or should I say dizzier?" His laughed at the quip which evidently he thought was quite amusing.

The Admiral leaned onto the balls of his feet, getting ready to move quickly. He brought his eyes into focus on target one, the cane. Pretending to examine his fingers, Al held his hand out at arm's length. Taking a small step forward, he grabbed the cane and brought it down on the head of his giddy guard. Thames dropped the bowl of fruit and stood up to face the thief. "What are you doing? Give me that!"

"Go to hell." The cane came down hard on the sentry's head and Thames hit the floor.

The creature started bleeding. Feeling his bloody head, the befuddled man became frantic. "You impudent bastard! You think you can get away from us?" He bawled in a sniveling whine, "I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding. Lothos, kill him!"

The Admiral tackled the simpering snit to the floor, "I don't give a damn anymore."

"Make him kill her, Lothos. Make her die because of him!" The cane pushed down on the man's throat. Thames gurgled as whatever kind of lifeform he was faded. A quick look for the gray spot and Al saw it getting larger and larger. The more Thames turned blue, the bigger the spot became. Without knowing what would happen next, the Admiral gave the cane one final push and Thames dissolved just as Zoë had. Step one was over. Time to take care of Lothos. He dove headfirst toward the gray spot and disappeared through it like Alice through the looking glass.

* * *

The attack was immediate and had no warning. The Admiral, burned face, torn lung and all seized the IV pole next to him and swung it toward Beth. As his counterpart was doing to Thames, he held the pole across his wife's throat and leaned into it. Beth was more startled than afraid, but breath was drawn from her. Emily wedged herself between them as Gia pulled her father from behind.

The Admiral's daughter felt blood once again seeping through his bandaged chest, but she couldn't pull off the evil incarnated in her father's body. She screamed at him. "Dad, stop! No, Dad! It's Mom!"

Nothing stopped the violence against Beth. Emily kept working at the IV pole and got it to slip from his fingers and Beth was able to inhale, The Admiral's wife tucked her chin to her chest hoping to keep his hands from continuing to choke her. He assaulted her with fists, bringing one down onto her face, another to her chest, still more to her belly. Gia and Emily got in the way of the flailing. Each felt his anger. The dying man attacked all three women and could not be stopped.

* * *

The Admiral was sucked into another world. He had located the door into Lothos' Control Room and stood in front of the evil machine that had turned the near perfect world of Al Calavicci into hell. The cane still in his hand, his rage exploded and he bashed a flashing panel. Its lights sputtered and sent a violent electrical charge through the room. Nerves caught fire inside him. The pain was excruciating, but he focused on destroying Lothos. He smashed at the panel again and more pain flew threw him. His third attack was answered with a jolt that would forever change him.

* * *

Ziggy still had not gotten a lock on the Admiral, but everyone in the Control Room knew the time had come. Allie, Peri and Toni watched the monitor and saw their father trying to kill their mother. It stunned the two younger girls into statues unable to move. Toni started for the door wanting to help her family.

Sam yelled at her, "I need you here!"

"I have to go."

"You want to help, then stay!" He looked to Ziggy, "Tell Verbena to get to the Waiting Room now! We have a visitor coming. Then get ready to leap me." He pulled off his clothes to unveil the Fermi suit and ran toward the Accelerator Chamber. Standing on the silver disk in the floor he yelled, "Ziggy, leap me into Beth right now!"

"Dr. Beckett, that would be dangerous."

"Just do it. Leap me into Beth!"

With Toni at the console, Sam Beckett was enveloped by a blue light and leaped into the body of Beth Calavicci.

In the Infirmary, the Admiral was unstoppable and Beth was losing the fight. No one there saw Sam fade into her body, but they saw a sudden physical strength allowing Beth to pull Al's hands away. He kept the Admiral apart from him and announced to the room. "I'm Sam! I leaped into Beth! Get a sedative! Go now, Emily!"

The nurse collected the medication and syringe and began to prepare the shot.

* * *


	15. Sing It High

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

* * *

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

* * *

**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Chapter 15 - Sing It High**

The Admiral heard the crackling of fire spread through his legs dropping him to the floor. For a split second, he lost focus. He heard bones crack. More fire shot through his body. His work hadn't ended. Using pain as fuel, he picked up the fallen cane and beat at the console. More lights fizzled. Embers flew. Light vanished and the blackened room illuminated only when more sparks took flight. "Die, Damn you! Die or kill me now!" The serpent's head came down again and again. He brought it down again and again and again and raged on all his torments; the anger at his rapists, the outrage of Trudy's death, the wrath fueled by V.C torture, the fury of endangering his family. Unforgivable horrors and Lothos would die for them all.

"No more! Never again!" With each word, he smashed the machine, "You will not live! Die, you son of a bitch! Die!"

Back in New Mexico, Verbena watched Sam Beckett's body struggle for breath. Two MPs helped her secure an oxygen mask over his face knowing that it was actually Beth Calavicci under attack. She was heartened to see Sam could take in breaths even if they were shallow and hard won. "Keep breathing. We're going to get through this one too. Come on."

In the adjoining room, inputting code while Ziggy dictated, Toni was scared out of her mind. She never took her eyes off the console. She threw away the knowledge of the attack on her mother. It got in the way of her task and she didn't want to believe it anyhow.

In the Infirmary, Gia prepared another IV for her father. Emily fed oxygen to Sam Beckett through a mask. Sam did all he could to keep Al from killing him. He started to think he might lose. An inhuman scream of intense agony deafened everyone in the room.

The scream sounded in Lothos' Control Room as well. The Admiral smashed an orb on the underside of its controls and the room was engulfed in flames. The fireball charred everything and as Lothos exploded into non-existence, at the project, the Admiral's body fell insensate.

Sam could breathe, Beth could breathe, but now it was up to Toni to return each loved one to the proper body. She called to Ziggy, "I've never done this before! Tell me what I have to do!"

"Read and input the code from the panel by your left hand. Be sure Dr. Beeks has the Visitor prepared."

Toni looked at her sisters, "Go tell me what's happening! Tell me if the retrieval is working!"

Allie and Peri stared at the monitor showing the activity in the Accelerator Chamber. A fading light grew quickly into a bright blue white glow. Peri called out, "Something's happening. I don't know what it is!"

Verbena ran into the Control Room. She had seen the phasing of souls often. "Sam's leaping back!"

"Whatever you're doing, you're doing it right!" Peri told her.

Within seconds, the light faded and a silence descended. There was nothing more anyone could do. Whoever was wherever, that's where they were for eternity.

Allie, Peri and Verbena entered the Accelerator Chamber and stared at Sam Beckett's body. Slowly, a hand went to the face and pulled away the mask. Dazed, the person sat up and sighed, "Is Beth okay?"

Verbena asked, "Sam, is it you?" He nodded. "Thank God."

Whether it was the physical activity or the emotional roller coaster, Sam needed to catch his breath. "How is Beth and did Al make it back?"

No one had an answer. They left the blood and guts of the Project and made a beeline for the Infirmary, all except Toni. She leaned her elbows on Ziggy's console and buried her head in her hands. Ziggy spoke up first, "You did very well. You're to be commended."

"Is dad dead?"

"I don't know, Antonia. His body still lives up in the Infirmary, but I don't know if his soul was able to return."

"What about Lothos?"

"That I do know. Lothos is dead. The threat is over. We are all safe."

She was spent. The fear she buried during the retrieval surfaced and she felt very old and tired. "Do I need to do anything here before I go upstairs?"

"No, I am capable of securing all data banks and closing out the programming. Go see your parents. Tell Dr. Beckett I am contacting his wife."

The Infirmary floor was littered with remnants of IV bags, bandages, syringes and other paraphernalia. Emily inserted the new line for the Admiral's IV while Gia attended to her mother's injuries. A huge bruise covered half of Beth's face. Mumbling through her split lip Gia said, "Mom, I think he broke your nose. We have to get you into x-ray."

"No, you need stitches. Your lip is bleeding. How's daddy?"

Sam, Verbena and the younger Calavicci girls arrived and were met with a stunning picture - Beth beaten black and blue and the Admiral lying on the bed still comatose. With only one hand, Emily was once again stemming the flow of blood from his chest wound and Gia had an open gash on her mouth. Donna came in with Toni.

Allie was the first to break into tears, "Why isn't he better now?" No one had an answer, but there wasn't time for the medical personnel to worry about it yet. Donna and Toni took the youngest girls into the waiting area while Sam triaged. Seeing to Al came first. The bleeding in his chest was again controlled. The IV restored the missing fluids. A check of his arms and legs gave evidence of a tragic complication. The cracking bones included vertebrae and he was going to join the ranks of Americans with disabilities. While it would take some time to make final determination, it appeared that the Admiral would be using a wheelchair. After all that could be done had been done, there was quiet.

Verbena became the x-ray technician taking films of Beth's broken nose and Emily's broken fingers. Sam took four stitches in Gia's lower lip. The fractures weren't serious and Verbena helped splint the ring and little finger on Emily's left hand. A metal protector covered Beth's nose and she looked like a raccoon. None of the other blows did serious damage, but she was going to be sore for awhile.

After two hours, calm settled in and everyone found a seat in the waiting area with Donna, Toni, Allie and Peri. Sam sighed, "You were all amazing."

The silence lasted a few minutes. Peri started to smile. "It's been a long day, but you know what?"

Sam smiled at her. "Yeah, I think I do."

No one else had an answer. With a sly voice, Peri sang, "Ding, dong, the witch is dead!"

Verbena was confused, "What?"

A smile showed up on Allie's face too. "Dr. Beeks, Lothos is really dead. Peri and I know it. We're free." She cried through her tears, "I don't feel that awful darkness anymore. It's gone."

Beth held out her battered arms and her 17-year-old baby crawled into them. Any aches that Beth felt in her body were nothing compared to the relief in her heart. Her family freed from possession. They knew what no one else could know except Al, and the Admiral wasn't talking. Then the realization that the ordeal wasn't quite over discouraged them all.

Sam remembered the words the Admiral said before he was lost. "'Everything all again.'"

Even though she insisted she was fine, Beth stayed down in the Infirmary overnight. Sam wanted to be sure her broken nose was simply that and nothing more. Her bed was arranged next to the Admiral's. It was late, past midnight and the Calavicci daughters were all in the Admiral's quarters. The Admiral had not moved since Lothos' death. A mild tranquilizer helped Beth fall asleep. Sam fought his own desire to sleep since he was on duty until morning. With a broken hand, Emily deserved some time.

It was time to change IVs for the Admiral. As quietly as he could, Sam hung another plastic bag and adjusted the infusion. Sitting back down, he pulled a chair between the two beds and put his head close to his old friend's. "Now listen to me, old man. You did it. You did the impossible. You killed Lothos and we're all fine. You'd be so proud of your girls. Each of them helped bring you home. Toni is a mind-blowing computer tech. She handled Ziggy for me so I could leap. Gia kept you and Beth safe when Lothos was doing his best to kill you both. Peri and Allie knew what Lothos was doing all the time. They guided us through the whole thing. Beth held all of us together. I don't know if there is another woman in the world who could handle you. She is so beautiful and centered. I don't know anyone who has her confidence, not even you." He chuckled, "I got to tell you, Donna is so pissed off at me. I kept her out of the picture at the end. She would have tried to keep me from leaping and I had to keep that option open. When I get home, she said we're going to have to have a long talk. I think that's why I offered to take first watch here. Hopefully she'll calm down a little." He looked up at the heart monitor. It blipped along at a steady, but oddly passive pace. "The only thing missing now is you. You have to come home. Beth and the girls have to have you back. So do I. I want to apologize to you, but nothing I do will be enough. This whole thing is the result of my rushing the project. You kept trying to get me to slow down. I thought you just didn't understand what I was trying to accomplish. Now I see you understood the ramifications of this better than I ever did. I didn't listen." The mix of exhaustion, sadness and despair caught up with Sam. He felt tears on his cheek. "No crying, in Quantum Leaping, right?"

Beth heard the sounds and saw the younger man finally letting go of the emotions he tried to contain for so many long difficult months. "Sam?"

He turned to the woman whose beautiful face was a mass of bruises and bandages. He asked, "What did I do to him? I hate this project."

"Al loves it. He moans and groans about growing old and wanting peace and quiet. Then he gets a taste of it and the next thing I know there's a new motorcycle in the garage or he's getting licensed for some new aircraft. Al is a grownup with a little kid's joy for life. He always knew what he was doing, what he was risking, but he believed in you and what Quantum Leap would accomplish. You did great things for people and Al does not regret that at all. I don't either. Since you two began this odyssey, he has learned a lot about himself. He's admitted a lot of things to me that he never told anyone. It's like his involvement here gave him a chance to put right what was wrong in his life."

Sam thought back to Al's private diaries. He recalled the leap where Beth began a relationship with Dirk Simon leading to Al being declared dead and to Beth's second marriage. Without thinking, he added, "At least it brought you back to him."

Beth was unaware of her other life, the life with Dirk. "What are you talking about? I never left Al." Sam immediately cursed his stupidity. That part of Al's life was to remain private. It was one of the few files eradicated from all potential archives. The Admiral's and Sam's personal histories were too close for scrutiny by others. The look on Sam's face gave away the secret. Beth asked, "Sam, am I a different timeline?"

The secret was out and there was nothing to do but present the total truth. Beth remembered Dirk Simon and Jake Rawlings. She remembered that later in the evening some friend of Al's came by to tell her he was still alive. She remembered ghost dancing with her MIA husband, somehow hearing his voice and feeling his tender kiss. The pain of her desertion made her light-headed.

"Al wanted me to intervene the first time and I wouldn't do it." With sarcasm aimed at himself, he said, "It was against the rules and I made sure we kept to the rules. I only made exceptions when it came to me. When I wanted something, like Donna to trust me enough to marry me or my brother coming home alive from Vietnam, then the rules didn't matter."

From the look on Beth's face, Sam saw he was offering information that she didn't have. "Donna didn't wait for you like I didn't wait for Al?"

Another major gaffe and he cursed himself silently, but Beth only heard, "It's a long story."

"Does she know?"

He shook his head. "Al and I thought it might upset you both, so we eliminated the information about those leaps."

"She has to know, Sam."

"I've said way too much already."

Composing herself Beth whispered, "It's not like you had a manual to work with. This was all new stuff. But Al's mine now, Sam. This is the only timeline that matters. He's mine and I don't care how it happened. It's right that it did. That's all." They sat quietly for a few minutes. Beth turned to Sam, "Is he really paralyzed?"

"I'm not completely sure. The cord was damaged at L1 or L2. He might walk with braces and canes. When he stabilizes a little more, we'll get him into Taos for a PET scan and he can see a neurologist."

"And then a plastic surgeon for his face and then a specialist for his lung and the ophthalmologist for his eye and then who else?" Sam's tears came back quietly, without fanfare or sound of any kind. Beth took his hand, "It's okay, Sam. He loves you so much. So do I and the girls. Nothing can change that." The tears didn't stop. "Shh, Sam. You know Al doesn't handle crying very well. You might wake him up."

He straightened up, sucked in his grief and wiped his face. "I hope so."

A wispy voice told them, "Careful what you hope for."

Beth called quietly, "Al?

Al spoke again, "Beth, are you okay? The girls?"

Sam stood at Al's bedside wanting to scream out his joy, but he remained calm. "Just relax. You're still pretty messed up. Lothos did a number on you."

"Beth and the girls, are they okay?"

"Yes, Al. They'll all be fine, especially now."

"I hurt them. I remember now. I hurt them." He tried calling louder, but the sound was only coarser and more pained, "Beth?"

Sam came close and had Al focus on his face. "It wasn't you. Lothos tried to kill Beth through you, but she's okay. Her face is bruised pretty badly, but she's okay."

"Beth?"

He was going to see her sooner or later. Just get it over with. Anyhow, she had to hold him. He was free of evil and would be coming home. Sam helped her out of bed and watched as she gingerly took his battered face in her hands. "Thank you, God." She cried as she held him as tightly as she dared. "Are you home, really home?"

"Looks like." He winced when Beth brushed the burn on his face. "Forgive me. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"It's okay, baby." She stroked his cheek so softly, almost as if he might break. "You rest now. We'll talk in the morning, okay? The girls will all come by. You'll be so proud of how they helped get you back. All of them."

He finally saw her black eyes and the protective covering on her nose. "I did that to you."

"No, baby. Lothos did. You and Sam stopped him from killing me."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"You don't have anything to be sorry about. We're all okay. We're going to concentrate on getting you well. They hurt you pretty bad."

His voice revealed pain and his weakness. "I remember."

"Sweetheart, we know everything. Ziggy was able to get a visual lock on you. I am so proud of you. I don't know how you fought against what he did. You beat him. You killed him."

Realizing the extent of his injuries Al winced, "And you'll all be paying for it the rest of my life."

Sam took the Admiral's hand. "I think we'll be celebrating it."

Beth gently kissed his lips. "We'll get through this. We've done it before, so we know the drill. This time around though we have a lot more people to help us." The suffering man grimaced in pain. "Work through it, Al."

"I'll get you some relief. Hang on, buddy." Sam left the room.

Beth put her head close to Al's and whispered, "I'm here, Al. You're going to get through this. I promise." As she had done so many times for her family, Beth sang, "Baby mine, don't you cry. Baby mine, dry your eyes. Rest your head close to my heart, never to part, baby of mine."

His eyes closed and he whispered, "I will love you forever, even if I die."

She had him back again and there as no way she would allow him to die. "Listen, babe, Sam and I won't let you die so you better work your ass off to get better. You're home now. You're never going to leave me alone again. I won't allow it, understand?"

His consciousness was fading, but a faint smile roared out that Calavicci was back and he would come through hell one more time.

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Ding! Dong! the Witch is Dead © Harold Arlen 


	16. The Circle Remains Unbroken

**Too Smart for His Own Good **

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This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

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**Too Smart for His Own Good**

**Epilogue - The Circle Remains Unbroken**

The Admiral's recovery was a long and intense process. Several surgeries helped heal the burn on his face. Additional plastic surgery minimized the disfigurement considerably. The hole in his lung mended and his breathing was back to normal. Gaining back weight was ridiculously hard. He ate as much as he could, but still had only managed to get up to 124 pounds. He needed about twenty more to bring him where he should be, but there had been no weight gain for over two months. His exercise regimen ate up so many calories that he hit a plateau and just wasn't moving. Beth and Sam tried to convince him to ease up on the exercise, but he wanted his upper body strength back. Without it, he would never be able to leave the wheelchair he was using and walk around on braces and crutches

Christmas was around the corner and it was certainly going to be a happier holiday than the year before. The psychological possession by Lothos was completely gone. Al, Allie and Peri returned to their normal quirk-filled selves. All signs of split lips, broken fingers and broken noses were gone. Sam and Donna chased their toddler constantly and little John was always in pursuit of Uncle Al. Sam teased they had the same maturity level.

Considering the hell of the early part of the year, to honor Christmas all the Calavicci girls returned to New Mexico with husbands and children in tow. The apartment at the project was filled with decorations, music, children, and good friends. There were two trees filled with lights and silly ornaments. No fancy glass balls or designer stuff. They and the children created almost everything on the trees and Al and Beth liked it that way. The trees signified the hope in the young ones' eyes. While he was recovering, Al heard someone talk about the audacity of hope and the phrase struck a chord. That was the theme he wanted for the holiday - hope in its most audacious forms.

Peri brought Mitchell Bering back with her and they announced their intentions to marry. The actor stood by Peri's side since the Admiral's collapse in Albuquerque. She offered him exit several times, but he refused. There was a strong love between the two and somehow everyone knew they would weather the Hollywood curse of two career couples.

After toasting the engagement, Peri, the Admiral and Sam, gathered to talk to the newest member of the family. The good doctor said, "You know, Mitch, you could make a science fiction movie about this whole thing with Lothos."

"That's a thought, Sam." It was time to start razzing the Admiral. "There'd be one hell of a casting problem, though. I mean, who could," he searched for the right word, "_illuminate_ the Admiral so he'd be believable? I know the guy and I don't believe him!"

Nodding, Sam said, "You got a point. Now, I think Russell Crowe would be good casting for me. What do you think?"

"Too Australian. I think I'm perfect. We're about the same size. I can sing and dance."

The Admiral listened to the teasing and wasn't about to be left out. "You'd look good with a skunk stripe down the middle of your head."

Peri wanted in, "I got it. I know who can play Dad. David Spade. He's little enough. Of course, they'd have to age him forty, fifty years." The men laughed a little too hard.

Al smiled. "Cute. You people are not nice. For me, I'm thinking more like Tom Hanks. He's got the curly hair. He'd only have to be aged two or three decades." Five-year old grandson Dino ran up and jumped in Al's lap. The Admiral swallowed a sharp pain and hugged the boy. "Hey, there, sport. I am so glad you're here."

"Me too, Gramps. I missed you." The boy started poking at the artificial eye. "Your eye is fake. Momma told us."

"Yeah, it's cool, huh? And you know what?" He leaned in and whispered, "I take it out at night."

"Way cool. Can I take you to show and tell?"

The child's acceptance was wonderful for the Admiral. He led the laughter. "I'm not sure your teacher would appreciate me taking out my fake eyeball for the kids."

Dino didn't understand why, but he said, "Too bad." He kissed his grandfather and moved on to the tray of cookies Beth was bringing in.

Al looked at the children playing. "All these boys. I'm not used to little boys. Thank God Toni and Kevin had a girl. Now that I can relate to."

Toni and Kevin were arriving shortly with another five-year old, Al's namesake. Their Albert was called Alby. Alby had a little sister now who was just two months old and Elizabeth Grace would be making her debut at this party. Al couldn't wait to hold his first granddaughter. "Did I show you the pictures?"

The three people gathered around him answered in unison, "Yes!"

"Sorry. It's just that she's so beautiful." Another pain shuddered through the Admiral. He'd been up a long time, longer than he was supposed to, but it was party time. He worked through it, but it left his chin on his chest and his shoulders sagging a bit.

Sam caught Beth's eye and, in an unspoken language, told her Al was hurting. She came over to rescue the trio. "Okay, you three. Go mingle." Attempting to be coy she kissed Al and told them, "I want some one-on-one time with my flyboy."

Al winked, "That sounds promising." He put his hands on the wheel rims. "Excuse me."

"Hang on. I'll push. I am the power behind the throne you know." She swung the chair around. "See you later," and they made their way to the bedroom.

He kidded with her, "Beth, babe, we have company. You want to do this now?"

Once they were out of eyesight and earshot she told him with as serious a tone as she had, "I want you to lie down for half an hour. You'll fizzle out for later." It's not what he wanted to hear, but she was right. He'd been fighting the pain for a long time, but he didn't want to miss Elizabeth's arrival. This new baby was everything he worked so hard for. Toni's pregnancy gave him something positive to concentrate on during the hard days of his recovery. He pushed to get better so he would see this child. Now he wanted to hold her so much, he was pushing himself again. They got into their room and Beth sat on the bed facing him. His pale complexion concerned her. "Here's the deal. You are going to get into bed and I lied. You'll stay there for more than half an hour. You're looking absolutely drained. Please don't overdo. You won't get through the holidays if you don't pace yourself."

She was right and he was pissed off. "I got to get stronger than this. I have to."

"Time will heal."

"Nine months is a lot of time. It's a month longer than it took when I got home from Vietnam." He pulled off his tie. "I hate this."

"I do too, but I'm glad you're not fighting me."

The shirt was next. "Sometimes I wonder if this is what Lothos planned for me, that making me paralyzed was his last stroke of revenge."

"No doubt about it. He knew he couldn't kill you, so he did what he thought would make you die inside." She untied his shoes, "But he didn't really know who he was dealing with."

He looked down at his non-functioning legs. "He knew." With Beth's help, he put on a pair of pajamas and using a trapeze bar suspended over their bed he transferred from the chair. "You know, in other circumstances this trapeze could be fun."

Winking and remembering she smiled, "It was last night."

Clenching his teeth against the stab of pain, he manipulated his way under the blanket. The task always shot lightning up his spine. "Damn. That's got to stop someday." Beth was about to encourage him when he said, "I mean before I die."

She turned off the light. "I'll wake you when Toni and Kevin get here." Closing the door behind her, Beth took a short detour into Allie's room. She wondered if this was going to be her husband's last Christmas. He'd come so far and maybe he'd come further, but his body had endured so much. However, if anyone was going to get through this, it would be Al. It was just so hard to watch him struggle to do simple things like getting into bed. Her heartbreak was devastating, but he wouldn't see it. Alone in her child's room, she gave herself permission to shed the tears that she prayed would not be coming more and more often.

The party continued while the Admiral slept. Beth checked and since he was still sleeping soundly, she didn't wake him when the new grandchild arrived. He would be angry, but that would quickly pass and he'd be wonderfully rested and ready to play all night long with the kids.

After Elizabeth was introduced to everyone, her mother carried her down the hallway. Toni snuck into her father's room holding Elizabeth Grace like the little china doll she was. Time came for her to meet Gramps and he needed to get up for dinner anyhow. The Admiral's daughter turned on a small lamp far away from the bed and gave the room a soft glow. She sat in his wheelchair next to the bed and looked at him sleeping, watching his chest rising and falling in a regular strong rhythm. Tears of happiness and relief began to fall. He was still alive and stronger than the last time she'd seen him. She finally permitted herself to think Elizabeth Grace would grow to know her grandfather. He just might be there for this special little girl and while all the grandkids needed him, she needed him just a little bit more.

Gently, Toni awakened her father. "Dad, wake up. Someone wants to see you." She leaned down and kissed his forehead. His eyes fluttered open. "There you are. I have a little girl here who needs to meet her grandfather."

Al reached for the trapeze and pulled himself to a sitting position. The pain was there again, but with the goal being this new grandchild, he barely noticed it. "Toni, baby. I'm glad you're here. Where is she?" Toni placed the child in Al's arms. His granddaughter was in his arms. Too good to be true, the little girl was finally with him. His heart began to race and the smile plastered on his face was so big it hurt. Elizabeth Grace looked up at him, made baby noises and drooled. "That's the first thing you do to Gramps? Drool on him?" He didn't take his eyes from her. "She is so beautiful, Toni. God, she is beautiful."

"I know, Dad." Toni wiped her eyes.

Al noticed. How could he not? He was a dad and dads know when their kids are crying. "Listen kid, those tears better not be for me and they better not be for her. She's going to be fine. This is a gifted child and her gift is love. Don't forget that."

"I won't, Dad."

Beth crept in and watched silently from the door.

The Admiral looked into Elizabeth's little face and saw perfection of love where others saw Down syndrome. This little one needed Gramps and his purpose became clear. "Toni, her muscle tone will get better. I bet we both start walking again at the same time except I'll always need braces. Lizzie Grace is going to be hell on wheels if I have anything to say about it."

"Just what I need."

"Damn straight it is." Al held the baby to his chest. Her little heart beat over the spot so heinously injured by Lothos in that evil basement.

Admiral Al Calavicci could never be accused of having a good voice, but there was something soothing when he sang so softly, "I'm a little cookie, yes, I am. I was made by the cookie man. On my way from the cookie pan, a little piece broke off of me. But I can taste just as good as any regular cookie can."

Toni thought she knew her father's entire repertoire. "That's a new one."

"I like it. Makes me feel like it's okay to be in that chair. You should learn it for her." He held the baby who looked so much like Trudy that his heart broke. "This one makes my world even more perfect, you know. Everything is okay now."

His daughter looked away to hide her tears and saw her mother with similar tears in her eyes. They realized that the fight Al was confronting would kill a lesser man, but he would not give in. He would fight to see his grandchildren grow up. They knew it.

Al knew what lay ahead better than anyone else did, but he didn't have time to worry about the future. The face staring up at him smiled with the kind of pure joy that infects all babies and Lizzie Grace fell asleep in Al's protective embrace.

**THE END**

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I'm a Little Cookie © Larry Penn  
The Audacity of Hope © Barack Obama 


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